A poignant week for LAist as they lose their trusted and amazing editor Tony Pierce to the LA Times, but what a blast his last week was. He shared his 25 Favorite CDs of 2007 and wrote a great review of just a good movie, No Country For Old Men. At UCLA, thousands of students celebrated the end of their quarter by running around campus in their undies (lots of photos in a two-part......

Food bloggers from around the world are offering delicious prizes as part of Menu for Hope 4. Menu for Hope is an annual fundraising event hosted by Chez Pim. Last year, Menu for Hope raised an incredible $62,925 to help the UN World Food Programme feed the hungry. Want more details? Well, here’s the FAQ. From December 10-21, you can buy raffle tickets to bid on any on the food-related prizes being offered. Tickets cost......

Except for the large banner hanging from the scaffolding outside Pasta Wafu, you would hardly know it was there. It is tucked in the long and narrow space behind the usually packed Ramen Setagaya, and the name on the door still reads "Oriental Spoon," it's former incarnation as a Japanese tapas restaurant, which itself only opened in July. But Pasta Wafu is all new and features Japanese style pasta, and sushi, and Italian food--all......

We've all got our go-to recipe bibles. You know -- the book you go to when you're looking for basics, like how to hard-boil an egg; simple, traditional recipes, like beef stew, chicken fricasee, or corn muffins; or some yet untried way to zip up a tired ingredient. In Italy, it's The Silver Spoon, in America, it's the Joy of Cooking (or, one might argue, How to Cook Everything). In Spain, it's 1080 Recetas de......

This week Bruni one-stars Bar Stuzzichini. Says that overall the restaurant is “an honorable effort worthy of note. Its dishes include more successes than failures.” However, service is flawed, lighting unflattering and the space itself “evocative of…a Midtown mess hall.” In Dining Briefs, Marian Burros likes Accademia di Vino, calls the pizza “crackling crusted gems.” Bruni goes to Borough Food & Drink, which he says “gets points for cleverness, humility and a fundamental earnestness that......

Bookeaters Return! What started off as an excellent concert lineup just got better and better as the date approached. The additions of Spoon's Britt Daniel and Kevin Drew were a bonus treat. Music, reading and charity aside, perhaps the biggest wow moment was show headliner Jim James' new closely cropped haircut. The My Morning Jacket front man sheared his trademark Muppet locks since the last time we've seen him about. Not that it affected the......

Londonist are starting to think their city is getting just a little bit too expensive, when even Christian Slater can't afford to go out there. And there's no escaping, as local singer Lily Allen discovered when she was barred entry to the US. The British mapping agency caused further bad karma, by blocking a 3-D representation of London in Google Earth. But the smiles returned to Londonist's faces as they interviewed Baroness von Reichardt,......

While SFist cringed at the fatal dose of crime littering the Bay Area, it found solace in Hillary Clinton's San Francisco campaign headquarters opening, which featured loads of exposed mammary glands. In other news, SF Taxi Commission ruled that Satan's cab must keep its (in)famous medallion number, 666; and in an un-fashion-forward frenzy, San Francisco Fashion Week (chortle) bars bloggers from covering and getting smashed at their shows and parties, respectively. Also, they found a......

COMEDY: This weekend marks the 9th Annual Del Close Marathon. Del Close, if you don't know by now, "was the driving force behind improvisational comedy in Chicago for over 30 years influencing Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Mike Myers, John Belushi, Chris Farley and the Upright Citizens Brigade to name a few." The annual weekend began after Del's passing in 1999. All Weekend // Various Times // UCB Theater [307 W 26th St] // $10 shows,......

EVENT: The New York Book Club at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum presents…"Breaking News: How the Associated Press Has Covered New York City". The panelists include "Hal Buell, longtime AP photo editor who put images of the Vietnam War in newspapers across America; Richard Drew, AP photographer who has covered New York events including 9/11; Edie Lederer, longtime UN correspondent and first woman to be the foreign chief of bureau; and Valerie Komor, corporate......

Faithless Return It's been something like 9 years since the last time Faithless played in New York. Considering that the band is one of the largest in England and the rest of the world, selling out soccer stadiums and headlining major music festivals year after year, their return to the States is a pretty big deal. Hitting a couple club dates on their way to Coachella, they stopped by Webster Hall earlier in the week......

River to River Booked! One of our favorite things to do in the city once the weather gets nice is to head down to the South Street Seaport after work on Friday to watch one of our favorite bands play for free as the sun goes down. Its an infinitely enjoyable experience. The River to River Festival is responsible for this and a whole bunch of other free concerts around Lower Manhattan every summer, and......

Urban Spoon has put up a fun mashup: Each of New York's 23602 restaurants are shown as a point on the map. Roll over the map or the names below to highlight a neighborhood. Click the map or the name to see a list of that neighborhood's restaurants. Bon appetit! If you click on one of the highlighted neighborhoods, you can zoom in-- here, for instance, are the restaurants in Park Slope.......

I first came across Spoon in 2002 when I found a copy of Kill the Moonlight at my library. Being ignorant of music at the time, I didn't know that it was one of the best-reviewed albums of the year. I did know, though, that I liked it. And, since then, Spoon has remained one of my favorite bands, so I jumped on the chance to speak with Britt Daniel to promote Spoon's December 30th......

Let’s start with some birth announcements. - Savoy is set to get its first offspring early next winter (think March/April). We can’t share too much on the location since the deal is still not done, but expect it to be east of the current location. Look for the menu to be in the vein of the approachable, sandwich/salad/mezze lunch program that followed the Savoy's renovation a couple of years ago. Entrée plates will be more......

Looking ahead to this week's movie options, there's a few indie-sized pics and one massive, Super Big Gulp-sized car racing comedy. Ordinarily Gothamist is all about championing the cinematic little guy, but when it's this goofy, yet earnest we say go for the excess. But to the small fish first: Quinceañera is a Los Angeles coming of age story centering around one Mexican-American girl, Magdalena and the traditional celebration which marks her 15th birthday. A......

To be perfectly honest, we didn't know a single thing about The End of the World till a friend emailed us recently telling us to check them out. We did and we really dig it. These guys seem to have a perfect grip on making really accessible music in the vain of Spoon and the Walkmen. Really don't sound much like either of those bands actually, but the attitude and the execution is totally......

Not that you were asking, but we know you wanted it. The obligatory Best of '05 List. We chose to list off the Best NYC Shows in 2005. We compiled this list after closely surveying and consulting...ourselves. Here are our Top 11 NYC Shows of 2005. That's right, we said ELEVEN. In chronological order...(insert drumroll here): 1/24/05 Colin Meloy @ the Fez [photos here] - of note: Colin told us these shows were also amongst......

Saturday: Partly to mostly cloudy with scattered showers and thunderstorms. Highs around 80 degrees. Lows in the low 70s. [via WNBC] Currently the weather isn't looking so great for tomorrow's Siren Festival. The image accompanying the forecast looks downright terrifying, but the actual forecast seems alright. We ain't scared of no thunderstorms! Look at it this way, a little rain will thin the crowd out and make the lines shorter. Not to mention cool us......

What a disaster yesterday was. After prominently featuring the Cloud Cult show at Knitting Factory last week, it ends up the show was never actually happening. If you bought tickets, contact Knitting Factory and/or Ticketweb and get your money back. The good news: we wouldn't have been able to talk about Cloud Cult on Gothamist otherwise, so hopefully you discovered a great new band (still haven't listened?). It's Siren time again. Every year the Village......

We're anxious to see if M.I.A.'s live show has improved since her last (and only) N.Y.C. show at Knitting Factory in February. Then again, we don't really care. After releasing one of the year's hottest albums, it's hard for the grimey Sri Lankan-born rapper to do any wrong. Diplo mans the decks Tuesday and Wednesday night at S.O.B.'s. You can also hear Diplo DJing at Rothko Tuesday night (after the M.I.A. show), and they'll......

We've all been waiting for the Village Voice Siren Fest '05 lineup here at Gothamist HQ. And finally, the first big names are being released (even thought the site hasn't been updated as of yet): The Village Voice, the nation's largest alternative weekly newspaper, is excited to announce the initial line-up for the 5th Annual Village Voice SIREN MUSIC FESTIVAL(tm) at Coney Island on Saturday, July 16th from 12:00 noon - 9:00 p.m. Scheduled performers......

Robbers on High Street...

If you aren't in Indio, California this weekend then you aren't seeing Nine Inch Nails, the Arcade Fire or Spoon. You also aren't going to be suffering from heat stroke in a desert and buying $8 bottles of water, so we think you made a wise decision to skip Coachella. This weekend in New York we say goodbye to April, which if the old saying is correct - no more rain! Right? So throw away......

The Duplass Brothers, Filmmakers...

As is usually the case, the local concert schedule around Thanksgiving is a tad thin. Look at it this way: If you go out, you'll have a little extra elbow room. Or, look at it this way: If you go out, you may be seeing bands that are playing to half-empty rooms, and nobody likes to play to half-empty rooms. Tonight, SOB's is hosting a special pre-Thanksgiving Day edition of Basement Bhangra. It's $12 with......

Eliot Shepard, Slower.net...

After the Guardian released its list of top 40 American bands (still playing), information leafblower took it upon himself to compile another top 40 list - this time coming from a panel of different bloggers. Here is the top ten: 1) The Strokes 2) Queens of the Stone Age 3) The White Stripes 4) The Flaming Lips 5) The Yeah Yeah Yeahs 6) Outkast 7) Wilco 8) Spoon 9) The Shins 10) The Mountain Goats......

With many shows that "suck," NBC will premiere Tracy Morgan's sitcom, The Tracy Morgan, in the Tuesday 8PM time slot on December 2. Take a look at NBC's description of The Tracy Morgan Show: Morgan stars in the sharp-edged family comedy as father, husband and small-business owner Tracy Mitchell, who, with his beautiful, no-nonsense wife Alicia (Tamala Jones, �Head of State�), share their modest apartment with their two kids, 13-year-old Derrick (Marc John Jefferies, �The......

Japanese firm Secom introduced GPS tracking for dogs and other animals yesterday. A mobile GPS terminal (1.7 ounces) is strapped onto the animal or put on its neck; Secom says it might be too big for cats and small dogs. It will retail in Japan for 5000 Yen (US$ 43) with 800 Yen monthly (US$7), with calls to the Secom center 200 Yen (less then US$2). Owners can locate their dogs within 164 feet......