DRINK: The raucous and ribald cabaret duo Kiki & Herb may be on semi-hiatus, but they’re resurfacing tonight for a very special ‘Eclectic Salon’ event at Bottlerocket, the “dog and child friendly” wine shop in the Flatiron district. It's not exactly clear what kind of performance is planned tonight, but the boozy surroundings are sure to provide ample inspiration. Playfully dubbed “The Year of Magical Drinking,” the evening features free wine tastings to wash......

Photograph of a vacant lot on the Lower East Side by p0psharlow on Flickr Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bicyclist struck on Queens Blvd. and 55th St. a smoke condition at the Heartland Brewery & Rotisserie At 350 5th Ave & East 34th St. Your name is Leila. You're a Verizon customer. You are receiving every text msg. addressed to Leila across the planet. A science teacher at a Staten Island H.S. along......

Whether it was a PR stunt or a legit "teach-in" on espresso, Starbucks shut down for three full hours last night to train baristas --leaving the 5:30 to 8:30pm coffee crowd out in the cold. Today they are back, with a new take on "the customer is always right" policy posted about their stores; it reads: "Your drink should be perfect, every time. If not, let us know and we'll make it right." Reportedly they'll......

If you can't get enough of the Giants winning Super Bowl XLII, we've got some good news for you...the Super Bowl XLII DVD is out today! While the DVD has a runtime of nearly three hours, it doesn't contain the whole game. What you do get from the DVD is a recap of the entire Giants season, culminating with highlights from the Super Bowl (without Joe Buck, if that's how you like it). The DVD......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Gothamist. The 2009 Toyota Corolla, which encourages you to "Live the Dream for Less Coin." Campaign for New York's Future, encouraging you to send a letter in support of congestion pricing. Joe Jackson's Rain, available now on Amazon.com. Jeremy Fisher, performing at the Canal Room tonight. Other People's Love Letters, the book where you can see 150 love letters you were never......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Gothamist. The 2009 Toyota Corolla, which encourages you to "Live the Dream for Less Coin." Other People's Love Letters, the book where you can see 150 love letters you were never meant to see. Joe Jackson's Rain, available now on Amazon.com. Nik Bärtsch's Ronin, the new album that's available now. Elsewares, where you can get a 10% off your order with the......

Brendan Canty is the drummer for Fugazi, the rightly revered D.C. post-punk band whose page on the Dischord Records website still states "1987 - present." The group hasn’t played together or released an album since their phenomenal seventh LP, The Argument; in 2002 they embarked on what is looking increasingly like a permanent hiatus. Like his bandmates, Canty has been consumed by various other creative projects: he’s produced albums for Ted Leo and The Thermals,......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Gothamist. The 2009 Toyota Corolla, which encourages you to "Live the Dream for Less Coin." Joe Jackson's Rain, available now on Amazon.com. Nik Bärtsch's Ronin, the new album that's available now. Elsewares, where you can get a 10% off your order with the discount code "ist". Busted Tees, selling a special shirt to honor the New England Patriots. If you're interested in......

The Hollywood Reporter has news that Beastie Boy Adam Yauch will be expanding his music and film production operation, Oscilloscope Laboratories, into indie film distribution. Under the nom de plume Nathanial Hörnblowér, Yauch has orchestrated many of the Beastie Boys videos, as well as the hip hop group’s inventive full-length concert doc Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That! Oscilloscope also shot and produced live concert videos for Beck and Ryan Adams. Former ThinkFilm vice president David......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Gothamist. Joe Jackson's Rain, available now on Amazon.com. Nik Bärtsch's Ronin, the new album that's in stores February 5th. Elsewares, where you can get a 10% off your order with the discount code "ist". Busted Tees, giving you free shipping when you buy three shirts. If you're interested in advertising on Gothamist or any other site in our network, check out our......

When They Might Be Giants released their twelfth album, The Else, over the summer, The Village Voice called it “as tuneful and rockin' as all the rest, from the withering ‘I'm Impressed’ to the female-empowerment anthem ‘Take Out the Trash.’” Keeping it fresh is no small feat for a band with such an impressive body of work, accumulated over the course of the past 25-plus years. But a listen to The Else or, even better,......

MUSIC: Merkin Concert Hall is reopening, and to help celebrate some of the piano greats will be on hand for a free, six hour concert. Philip Glass and John Medeski will be amongst those who will perform. Get more details here. 2 to 8pm // Merkin Concert Hall [129 W 67th St] // Free We had a chance to catch Marla Hansen (pictured) last year, and the Brooklynite silenced the room with her hushed compositions.......

It’s rare when a book causes the sudden desire to collect large quantities of AP flour, unsalted butter and sugar, but that’s what Greg Patent’s A Baker’s Odyssey might do to you. Other traditional bake-books operate within the wholly confined orbit of strudel and streusels; A Baker’s Odyssey has strudels galore but is also about forgotten or esoteric American immigrant recipes, so it also covers kulich and chin chin cookies, shoofly pie and puran poori.......

Reader Stephen wrote us with a holiday-related request: I don't know how else to handle this. I called the police and they told me to keep them, and that if I turned them in to the police they'd just auction them off. Anyway, I found about $200 worth of DVDs at the Citibank ATM [below 23rd Street in Manhattan]. They were new, unopened in a Virgin Megastore bag. I left my number there but who......

Did your commute feel more like Springfield than New York today? If you're out and about than you'll likely run into the Simpson-izing of Manhattan! Too bad we don't have a monorail here. Earlier this year upon The Simpsons Movie release, we saw 7-11s transform into Kwik-E-Marts, and today with the DVD hitting stores, we'll be getting a lot more than KrustyO's.Today's Simpsonfest is an all-day Fox affair in the heart of the city marking......

Kevin Walsh of Forgotten NY directed our attention towards this site, which features a number of photographs from a New York that brings to mind the fact that we're not just in another decade in this city; we're in another century. The picture above is identified as probably 55th St. near 8th Ave. in Manhattan and taken in 1970. We wonder if "Sexual Freedom in Denmark," then playing at the Eros Theater [right-hand side......

Last night, we did a double take while watching WNBC News at 11 because reporter John Noel was interviewing a man who made a DVD of supposed actual crimes, like robberies, carjackings, and possibly a murder, in progress (here's the WNBC video). Of course, it's called Criminals Gone Wild, and DVDs are $26.98. Noel asked the Brooklyn resident behind the DVD, Ousala Aleem, if he actually did film a murder. Aleem says, "Well, the......

In case you haven't noticed, 'tis the season for giving and all that jazz. You've got a friend/relative/other loved one who can't get enough of the epicurean lifestyle, and you're looking for the perfect gift. Never fear -- 'tis also the season of gift guides, which will steer you to gifts that will guarantee a smile. First, our own five gifts for the foodie under $50, all available online, including a beautiful olive wood mortar......

Entertainment Weekly’s #1 “smartest” Hollywood player, Judd Apatow, says “it doesn’t look good” for an end to the writers’ strike any time soon. The well-connected catalyst behind hits like Knocked Up has told the Toronto Star that the studios and producers are prepared to dig in and crush the union’s demand for payment for Internet downloads and movie streaming, “which are expected to become a big part of the industry in the coming years.”It would......

Barack may have Oprah, but the stagehands' and writers' union have John Edwards! The former senator, currently in third place after Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in the hunt for the Democratic presidential nomination, voiced his support of Local One, the Broadway stagehands union that has been on strike since November 9 over a new contract. Democratic political consultant Hank Sheinkopf said, "To interfere with the power of the Broadway community is not......

Wait a minute, didn't Brian Williams host Saturday NIght Live just two weeks ago, the one where Barack Obama appeared in the opening? Yes, but with the Writers Guild strike still on, Saturday Night Live decided to revisit the recent past, versus dig into old "Best of" clip shows. The unfortunate thing is that Page Six reports 90% of the SNL production staff was fired "until further notice" because of the strike. Other TV shows'......

Members of the Writers Guild of America have been striking in Los Angeles and New York this past week over details of a basic contract between writers and producers - one of the biggest sticking points is the amount of residuals writers get from DVD and new media distribution. The NY Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd asked Seth Meyers (who we spoke to on Tuesday) to give her a weekend update about the strike:......

Members of the Writers Guild of America went on strike today after talks between the WGA and Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers collapsed last night. WGA East members are striking outside of NBC headquarters at Rockefeller Plaza on 49th Street today - 30 Rock's Tina Fey, Saturday Night Live's Seth Meyers, and the Daily Show's John Oliver were on the line, as were many other writers for other productions - and other......

More Rescue Me for Next Season Cable network FX has picked up the Denis Leary FDNY dramedy Rescue Me for a fifth season. The show which films in the city and all over the tri-state area will not be getting the standard cable 13 episode season as it has for the past four seasons, but instead will be getting a 22 episode run split into two runs. Bolaris is Officially Heading South After months of......

It's a Halloween Hump Day! We will have more details about the Halloween Parade and other events in the city later, but we thought we'd point you to It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown videos on Youtube (part 1, 2, 3), in case you missed ABC's airing last night. You can also get it on DVD, and there's also the book It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown: The Making of a Television Classic. Halloween......

How I Met Your Mother: Season Two More and more people seem to be jumping on the bandwagon to promote CBS's hilarious program How I Met Your Mother but as long as that network's popular sitcom Two and Half Men gets nearly double the viewers, it can't be reiterated enough. Maybe the release of the second season on DVD today will bring over more converts to the show's charming characters, witty dialog and creative storytelling......

The fourth annual DigitalLife event kicks off today at the Javits Center. Featuring over 200 exhibitors, it is easily the best preview of digital gadgetry coming to life in the fall quarter. Today saw new product releases from Palm (with the Centro - a $99 Treo follow up targeted to new smart phone users exclusive to Sprint), iRobot (new cleaning robots!) , Gateway (a sleek new all-in-one called "One"), and Microsoft (Extenders for Windows......

The New York Film Festival doesn't begin until Friday but you can get your first taste of what will be unspooling on screens at Lincoln Center tonight at the Soho Apple Store. Director Wes Anderson and stars Natalie Portman and Jason Schwartzman will be on hand for a screening of Anderson's new 12 minute short film Hotel Chevalier at 9 pm. The short was shot entirely in a Paris hotel room and serves as a......

Faces who are new to Greenpoint might best recognize Paloma for its owner and chef, Camille Becerra, a Season 3 Top Chef contestant (and early departure). Others might just head there for their touted “Urban American Cuisine,” a mix of restaurant, artspace, and convivial Greenpoint gathering spot that serves up food, drink, and oftentimes live music and DVD and television projections. Gothamist visited with a table of friends on a recent night after a......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a home invasion robbery on 11th St. in Brooklyn, an unusual rescue on Selwyn Ave. in the Bronx, and a shooting on Rugby Rd. and Foster Ave. in Brooklyn. The 30-year-old homeless man charged with raping and torturing a Columbia student in her apartment in April was found mentally fit to stand trial. Negotiations between Thor Equities and several Coney Island boardwalk tenants are nearly settled, allowing many attractions......