What is it about Union Square that brings out the belligerence in people? (Anyone who’s tried to get through the Greenmarket in a hurry can probably answer that.) If it’s not thugs fighting with guns and knives, it’s hipsters fighting with pillows, activists fighting to stop a restaurant, and now this: organized combat in the spirit of Fight Club. Blogger And I Am Not Lying has a breathlessly detailed account of last week’s smackdown. After......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian struck on Woodward Ave. and Cornelia St. in Queens, a burn victim on West 52nd St. in Manhattan, and a carjacking on 141st St. and Riverside Drive in Manhattan. Chaka Khan joins the cast of the Broadway musical The Color Purple. I feel for you, ticket holders. Tomorrow is your last chance to register for voting in New York's February 5th primary. Using handheld computers to identify......

Brooklyn Ink tells us that the first rule of Punk Rock Pillow Fight is you do not talk about Punk Rock Pillow Fight. This is also the second rule, so you have most likely never heard of this underground feathered fight.The anonymous arena for this event is like Fight Club for hipsters. We exaggerate (slightly) but were forewarned not to give away too much about the pillow fight’s underground location in Bushwick. Two rows of......

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......

In Ryan Seacrest is Famous, his debut collection of pop-culture enthused short stories, Dave Housley makes you think, makes you laugh, and, if you're a writer, inspires you to run to your computer and get started on that premise you've been putting off. Whether it comes in the form of an alcoholic clown, people obsessed with Fight Club, or a DJ hiring a prostitute in an attempt to win back his old flame, Housley's stories......

EVENT: GRBG is helping in the celebration of the “Gangs of New York” Fall ’07 collection. Enjoy a photo exhibit of the fall look book shot in Coney Island, a screening of The Warriors and free Rum! 6 to 9pm // powerHouse Arena [37 Main St, Brooklyn] // Free READING: His book on the nightlife scene hit the stores yesterday, and today Rob the Bouncer will be joining them. He's not even quite sure what......

Did you happen to read the NY Times City Section essay, Under the Scaffold, a No-Fight Club? The author Allan Ripp writes about a confrontation between some youngsters hanging out under the scaffolding of a building near Columbus Circle. Apparently the teens have been loitering around there regularly during the day, and one day, one of the kids gets shoved into Ripp's way while he's walking. Ripp decides to say something:“You guys are always......

THEATER: The Ohio Theater is the site of two of summer's best play festivals, and the first, Clubbed Thumb's eleventh Summerworks, started yesterday with Anne Washburn's I Have Loved Strangers, "in which true prophets, false prophets, and non-prophets battle for the salvation of ancient New York." On the company's website http://www.clubbedthumb.org/ you can do some "research" before going, via various eyebrow-raising links; or you can just rely on the winning trifecta of excellent track records:......

Unless you are in Sonic Youth...you probably love the Pixies. At the very least, you loved the song Where Is My Mind? after hearing it in the movie Fight Club. This Thursday author Ben Sisario will be reading from his new book called "Doolittle," as part of the acclaimed 33 1/3 series. The book takes a look at the 1989 release of the Pixies sonic masterpiece of the same name, gaining insight from the band......

...although, when did they ever go out of style? News that rabblerousing book critic Dale Peck was smacked by Stanley Crouch, who had been Peck'd earlier, outside of precious West Village eatery Tartine is just the latest in adults forgetting the playground adage, "Stick and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me." [Gawker reported the incident, as editor Choire Sicha shares a "shitty East Village rabbit warren with Dale Peck" with......

Classic: Teenage 4-H camp counselors supposedly forced their young charges to fight each other: "Investigators are looking into the possibility the camp counselors exploited a rivalry between the Bedford and Halifax 4-H clubs, staging the fights in one of the camp's nine lodges...counselors allegedly charged children $1 to watch the fights, and more than 50 campers attended some of the fights." Parents were suspicious when kids starting coming home with black eyes and broken hands,......