ART: Art, fashion and blogs meet tonight at the Met. In an exhibition entitled blog.mode: addressing fashion, viewers will be able to comment on what they see. It's "the first in a series of shows designed to promote critical and creative dialogues about fashion. The exhibition presents some forty costumes and accessories dating from the eighteenth century to the present." Visitors are then encouraged to share their reactions online or from a "blogbar" of computer......

After being sued by the U.S. Department of Justice earlier this year over unfair hiring practices, Mayor Bloomberg announced that the number of black and Hispanic candidates has doubled in the past five years. Of the 4,000 applicants who scored highest on this year's entrance exam (22,000 took the exam, 21,000 passed), a third were black or Hispanic, up from 14% in 2002. The FDNY currently has just under 12,000 members; 666 are Hispanic, 337......

An author of the comic book series Optic Nerve, graphic novels like Summer Blonde and a frequent illustrator for New Yorker, Esquire and Rolling Stone, Adrian Tomine draws beautiful pictures about bad relationships—banalities, messiness, thrilling encounters and accidental connections. His new graphic novel Shortcomings follows Berkeley movie theater manager Ben Tanaka and the final days of his flawed relationship to Miko, who is considering a move to our fair city for a job. Cranky Ben......

THEATER: The National Asian American Theatre Company is known for creating adventurous theater with an all-Asian American performing plays that often have little to do with Asian Americans. Their newest production is Blind Mouth Singing by Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas; it uses a watery set and live music to tell a story of an “overly strict matriarch; her young son Reiderico who sneaks out of the house to visit his best friend who lives at the......

MOVIE: In the unlikeliest of scenarios, rapper (and jeweler) Paul Wall, his grills, Reggaetón king Tego Calderón and Wu-Tang's Raekwon traveled to Sierra Leone. The outcome is an informative documentary called Bling: A Planet Rock which focuses on "the flashy world of commercial hip-hop jewelry played a significant role in the ten-year civil war" in West Africa. 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm // BAM Rose Cinemas [30 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn] // $12 ART: Photographs by Lisette Model,......

Asian American International Film Festival July 19 - 28, Asia Society Founded in the '70s by Asian American activists wanting to capture with hand held VHS cameras the lives of their Chinatown neighbors, Asian Cinevision celebrates the 30th birthday this year of their annual Asian American International Film Festival. Held at the Asia Society (on Park Avenue and 70th Street), the AAIFF features quite a bit of notable and intriguing programming over the next two......

SALE: Our recent interviewees at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden are having a plant sale today and tomorrow. With .50 cent plants for kids and "new and exclusive varieties [of plants] from Monrovia Growers" for adults. Tomorrow at 10am there's a "Houseplants for Sun or Shade: guided shopping trip," so that may be a good time to go! Today 9am to 7pm, Thursday 9am to Noon // Kids Free, Adults $8 FILM: "West 32nd" is one......

Workers at Vietnamese restaurant Saigon Grill have gone on strike - and have also been locked out by the owners - for over two weeks. Now, the workers have filed a lawsuit against Saigon Grill for a wide range of labor violations. According to the Justice Will Be Served, the group that is working with the workers: "The owners demanded workers sign an illegal contract, stating that they have received minimum wage, even though......

SIGNING: Child Magazine honored Julie Andrews with a Lifetime Achievement Award at their 6th Annual Best Children's Book Awards. Today you can meet her and other winning authors at a celebratory book signing. 5 to 6:30pm // Books of Wonder [18 W 18th St] // Free MOVIE: Screening Liberally is showing Hannibal Rising tonight (prior to its release). The movie brings us to Hannibal Lecter's formative years, during World War II at the medieval castle......

Of all the retailers to find themselves in a heated debate about immigration, Toys R Us is one of the more unlikely ones. But the toy retailer is under some criticism concerning how it handled a newborn's situation in a New Year's contest. Toys R Us offers a $25,000 scholarship towards college education for a baby born in the new year. The NY Times reports that three babies were tied for being the first......

Some people were upset by the NY Post's "Wok This Way" cover headline, which showed Chinese leader Hu Jintao with President Bush, who was pulling at Hu's jacket. The Daily News, who is keeping score on any possible missteps by its rival, reports that Asian American groups are upset. For instance, Margaret Fung, executive director of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, tells the News, "It was racist and offensive because it takes......

William Dao, Museum of the Chinese in the Americas...

Health scare alert! One in five Asian New Yorkers might be infected with hepatitis B according to the Daily News. Scared yet? OK, so it's not quite that bad, the numbers are probably a bit exaggerated, but the threat is real. Here, we'll try to explain: Over the past year a number of clinics around the city have been offering free screenings for liver disease to Asian Americans. Those screenings have attracted a large number......

On Sundays, Gothamist runs opinion pieces on issues relevant to life in New York. The views expressed below are solely those of the author. In the olden days of theater if a character masqueraded it was usually to conceal class or family affiliation, or maybe gender, in order to write in bawdy scenes of men in women's quarters. OK, that's a pretty broad generalization, but think of the costume ball sequence in Romeo and Juliet,......

Thomas Yong,
Producer Tie a Yellow Ribbon...

- You know how you weren't worried about the home invasion robberies that seem to happen way too often in Long Island? Well, there might be a Brooklyn crew behind them - The police officer who shot an innoncent man while investigating a possible crime in a Chelsea mini-storage was convicted by a judge - It seems that the city's hurricane plan lists Rudy Giuliani as the mayor - Our current Mayor really wants to......

Finally, after months of waiting, the Jacko-inspired Anna Wintour & the Chocolate Factory finally hits theatres and we strongly suggest seeing it at the IMAX, on Broadway at 68th St. For those of you embracing procrasination and wasting more time at work, have fun with the Trailer Crashers - The Wedding Crashers' promotional tool in which you can easily insert you and a friend in the trailer (last week we substituted Krucoff and Lockhart......

Some may think Paul Giamatti the most maligned Sideways cast member from his lack of Academy Award accolades this year, but really the continually overlooked one is Sandra Oh. A mainstay in Canadian cinema and a familiar face from various supporting roles on television and in movies, Oh has been on our radar from long before she married director Alexander Payne. Although as far as Hollywood couples go, they make for a pretty cute pair.......

Asian CineVision, the folks who present the Asian American Film Festival in conjunction with the Asia Society every year, have recently launched a new touring series of Asian films. Playing in a number of reperatory venues in Boston and New York, the first movie, Men Suddenly in Black, screens tonight at Cinema Village. Starring Tony Leung Ka Fai (from Ashes of Time, but not the Tony Leung from In The Mood For Love) who won......

Those little tiny hamburgers package in a cardboard suitcase, the mini onions that explode in your mouth "like little flavor crystals," and the obscure suburban locations make White Castle a dining experience which inspires a nearly cult following among fast food afficionados. Gothamist has partaken of the chicken shaped in rings in our day, so we know what they're talking about in the new movie celebrating the craving, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.......

The upcoming release of Better Luck Tomorrow has critics and cultural scholars buzzing. A drama wealthy, Ivy League-poised Asian American teenagers who descend into crime, the film is sparking debate about how Asian Americans are supposed to be perceived. Some feel it's great, finally a way to get people seeing Asians as something else besides the model minority, while others are offended that Asians are being shown in an unflattering matter. At 2002's Sundance Film......

Tomorrow night, at the Supper Club, the "Original Kims of Comedy" will be performing. Rebecca Louie of the Daily News tries to explain: "The show's title melds a common Korean surname with the name of the hit African-American comedian tour "The Original Kings of Comedy," which grossed $39 million in venues around the country and an additional $38 million as a film." Common Korean surname, eh? The article is rich with information about that elusive......

Charles B. Wang, founder of Computer Associates, will have a student center dedicated to teaching SUNY Stony Brook students about Asian culture opening this spring. The building is designed by P.H. Tuan (who happens to a great-uncle by marriage), and the abstracted pagoda, as pictured above, seems more lovely as a form, more so than the building as a whole, but the indoor pool is cool. Learn more about the Charles B. Wang Center......