FOOD: The 12th Annual Brooklyn Eats food orgy goes down tonight at a new venue in the Brooklyn Navy Yard with spectacular views of Manhattan. Of course, that island takes a back seat at tonight's celebration, where for $115 you can go on a feeding frenzy with tastings from some of Kings County’s finest restaurants, ranging from Park Slope’s homey Aunt Suzie's to Williamsburg’s Michelin-starred Dressler and the French/West African fusion restaurant Korhogo 126.......

SALE: The Cooper Union kids are hosting their first annual Yard Stimulus Package, or what the rest of us call a Yard Sale. Expect end-of-year, residence purging items -- from IKEA furniture to artwork to used books. 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. // Cooper Union Great Hall [7 East 7th St] // Free READING: Augusten Burroughs reads from his latest, Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father, tonight at Barnes & Noble.......

MUSIC: Tickets are still on sale to see The Verve (pictured) tonight. While "Bitter Sweet Symphony" may be the song you remember best, they had about three albums worth of tunes that received much adoration. Over the weekend they Brit-pop rocked Coachella, so they're all warmed up from the west coast. 7 p.m. // WaMu Theater [4 Pennsylvania Plaza] // $40 READING: Former President Jimmy Carter hits up Barnes & Noble tonight to read......

FESTIVAL: The Bent Festival is coming to town this weekend! The annual art and music festival celebrates DIY electronics, hardware hacking, and circuit bending. "Each year we invite artists from across the country and around the globe to perform music with their home-made or circuit bent instruments, teach workshops to adults and children alike, create beautiful art installations and to generally come together, face to face, and showcase the state of the art in......

IN-STORE PERFORMANCE: To celebrate Lord & Taylor's re-launch of using roses in its branding, cast members from the acclaimed current Broadway production of Gypsy are performing at the Fifth Avenue store tonight. Everything's coming up roses, you know! 6 p.m. // Lord & Taylor [424 Fifth Avenue at East 38th Street] // Free EVENT: When you hear "Dharma" does your mind turn to Lost? While the show returns to the air tonight, check out......

MOVIE: Following Earth Day, Screening Liberally is screening Everything's Cool, a film about "America finally 'getting' global warming in the wake of the most dangerous chasm ever to emerge between scientific understanding and political action. While industry funded nay-sayers sing what just might be their swan song of pseudo- scientific deception, a group of global warming messengers are on a high stakes quest to find the iconic image, the magic language, the points of......

AUDITIONS: Calling all street performers, today is the Annual Street Performer Auditions at South Street Seaport. It promises to be better than reality television (but then again, what isn't?), so spectators are welcome too. The annual competition is a rite of Spring, of sorts, and will determine which 25 performers get to "become part of the street performer program at South Street Seaport. Those selected entertain and wow the thousands of visitors who stroll......

EVENT: David Mamet will be on hand at a screening of his latest project, titled Redbelt, tonight. The story follows a a Jiu-Jitsu teacher who, through a series of events, lands himself a job in the film industry -- and later forces him into a prize fight. Expect lots of action, "Mametspeak," and...Tim Allen. 8 p.m. // Walter Reade Theater [165 W 65th St] // $30 READING:Former presidential candidate John Kerry, and his wife......

MUSIC: High Places, Ecstatic Sunshine (pictured), Cex and Evangelista raid and rock the Harket Motel tonight. The DIY venue is sure to be hot following such a sunny day, so leave the jacket at home and get ready to dance...or stand disaffectedly. Friday // 9:30 p.m. // Harket Motel [1142 Myrtle Ave, Brooklyn] // $8 FAIR: Spring has sprung and Earth Day is just around the corner. To celebrate, "the 6th annual EarthFair will......

EVENT: Tonight the Brooklyn Art Project and BAM present Connected Unconscious, "a collaborative exhibition celebrating the creative possibilities of our web 2.0 connected world." 15 original pieces of art will be on display from artists worldwide, as well as video and music remixes. Bonus: free cocktails courtesy of BAM. 6 to 8 p.m. // BAM Natman Room [30 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn] // Free MUSIC: Dan Deacon and The Ed Schrader Show hold court at......

MUSIC: Lead-Decemberist Colin Meloy is in Brooklyn tonight, ready to weave tales of the high seas and lost loves. Laura Gibson opens the show...and tickets are still on sale! Hopefully he'll find the venue, when we interviewed him back in 2005 he noted, "I've ridden on many of the world's metro systems and I have to say that the NYC subway makes the least amount of sense." 7 p.m. // Music Hall of Williamsburg......

EVENT: Everyone's favorite members of the Top Chef judges table will be at Barnes & Noble tonight signing the series' new book. Get up close and personal with Padma Lakshmi and Tom Colicchio (pictured); be sure to bring them a Waldorf Salad and get your cookbook signed. 7 p.m. // Barnes & Noble [33 E 17th St] // Free PARTY: The weather is warming up so it's time to cool down, yes? Head over......

MUSIC: While you're in Park Slope checking out Jukebox the Ghost at Southpaw tonight, make a detour at nearby Union Hall for a bill fit for Marla Hansen (pictured). The Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter will be sharing the stage with Cat Martino and Sharon Van Etten for an early show. 6:30 p.m. // Union Hall [702 Union St, Park Slope] // $7 SHOW: It's time to channel your inner-elementary-schooler and join in on a Show and......

DISCUSSION: The New York Public Library invites Pico Iyer, Time correspondent, friend of the Dalai Lama and author of The Open Road: The Global Journey of the XIV Dalai Lama, to sit amongst the books tonight. The conversation is to cover the latest news on Tibet and the Dalai Lama's complicated involvement in the struggle. Friday // 7 p.m. // Humanities and Social Sciences Library [5th Ave and 42nd St] // $15 MUSIC: AIDS......

ART: Get up close and personal with the B&T; crowd tonight as Tom Birkner opens his Jersey Girls exhibit. The Garden Stater explores his Jersey landscape through paintings of tailgating, the Shore, cruising, etc. Pictured: Tina! 6 to 8 p.m. // DFN Gallery [210 11th Ave, 6th Floor] // Free EVENT: At tonight's "Upstairs in the Square'' you'll get a serving of Min Jin Lee and her debut novel, "Free Food for Millionaires,'' as......

TRIBUTE: "The Random House Publishing Group and the family of Norman Mailer (pictured) will present The Time of His Time: A Celebration of Life of Norman Mailer" today at Carnegie Hall. Charlie Rose will serve as the Master of Ceremonies, and the speakers will include Joan Didion, Don DeLillo, William Kennedy, Lonnie Ali, Tina Brown, and Sean Penn. His nine children, wife and sister will also be on hand. The event is open to......

READING: Tobias Wolff (pictured), Stanford professor and PEN/Faulkner Award recipient, will be at Barnes & Noble tonight to read...just for you. He'll be reading from his latest, Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories. 7 p.m. // Barnes & Noble [2289 Broadway] // Free MUSIC: Tapes n' Tapes, coming down from their Best New Music climax, have released their sophomore album and will be at the Virgin Megastore tonight performing some tunes from it.......

FILM: The Seward Park Branch of the New York Public Library is running a little free film series out of their basement. Expect to see some old 16mm prints of short films ranging from sci-fi to 1970's educational films. One librarian at the branch tells us, "we're kind of recreating that feeling of school back in the day, when the a/v dude would roll in the movie projector on a cart, and you'd get......

MUSIC: Word was spreading that the Red Hot Chili Peppers would be playing a free downtown show today as part of...Tartan Week. Clearly, the Red Hot Chili PIPERS would be a better fit for the event -- and so, the lesser known Pipers will actually be the ones entertaining the tartan-clad today. Friday // 5:30 p.m. // Hanover Square (directions) // Free THEATER: A dream team of hip theatrical innovators have joined forces, hopefully......

ART: Last summer, photographer and friend of Dash Snow, Ryan McGinley shot 4,000 rolls of film all over the U.S. with a troupe photogenic friends (and presumably no one brought clothes on this roadtrip). Tonight, 50 of those images (one is pictured) will be revealed at the opening of his "I Know Where the Summer Goes" show. 6 p.m. // Team Gallery [83 Grand St] // Free EVENT: We've often recommended going to Nerd......

THEATER: Everything’s coming up roses for Patti LuPone, whose sensational turn in a short run of Gypsy at City Center last year drew enough accolades to fuel a Broadway production, which has now opened to rave reviews. You might think the 1959 musical, composed by Jule Styne with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by Arthur Laurents, has been done to death by now – Bernadette Peters starred in the last Broadway rendition;......

EVENT: The Goethe-Institut New York discusses "What Is Green Architecture?" tonight as the part of a new series that is "exploring the cutting-edge developments in the field and their impact on contemporary life as well as implications for the future. Tonight's event features a discussion between noted engineer Matthias Schuler and Andres Lepik." 7 p.m. // The Goethe-Institut New York [1014 Fifth Avenue at 83rd St] // Free MUSIC: Shut out of Stephen Malkmus......

THEATER: Theatrical innovators The Civilians, who you may remember for Gone Missing, their funny reportage play about stuff people lost, is giving people a taste of their forthcoming production, Paris Commune. The cabaret-style show is inspired by the actual events that took place in Paris during the 1871 working class revolution in the wake of the Franco-Prussian war; the full production will be presented next month at the Public Theater. The one-night-only preview tonight......

MOVIE: Was there a West Coast Factory scene paralleling Warhol's? Morgan Neville's new documentary, The Cool School, argues that there was. In it, he explores those who transformed LA into more than just a celebrity-driven town, and taught its residents to love modern art. Various Times // Cinema Village [22 E 12th St] // $10 THEATER: Kevin Augustine’s astonishing new show at P.S. 122 is wowing critics and audiences alike, so act fast on......

EVENT: Artist space is quickly diminishing in the city, and tonight a talk about the crisis is going down in Williamsburg -- home of the recently shuttered 475 Kent lofts. Panelists include John Jasperse and Jonah Bokaer (Founders for the Center for Performance Research, a new affordable space in Williamsburg for rehearsal and performance); Guy Buckles (Founder & President of the Art Building a new company dedicated to real estate solutions for artists); and......

EVENT: All you hipsters with money burning holes in your tight jean pockets, it's time for another lesson on how to buy a home. Home Buying For Hipsters will bring you together with Licensed Real Estate agents, Mortgage Brokers and Real Estate Attorneys -- all there to teach you how to stretch your dime. This lesson in money management takes place at a bar, so bring some extra cash for booze. 6 p.m. //......

EVENT: Some of the 33 1/3 writers will be gathered round at Housing Works tonight. The series of short books brings fans of music together with their favorite albums, through writing. This evening join in on a conversation with authors Kim Cooper (Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea), Andrew Hultkrans (Love's Forever Changes), Amanda Petrusich (Nick Drake's Pink Moon), and Kate Schatz (PJ Harvey's Rid of Me). With Q& A, signing......

Almost exactly two years ago, Gothamist and Slice had a pizza party at Fornino in Williamsburg. It's been a long time, but we're happy to announce that we're having another pizza party at Fornino on April 7th. When: Monday, April 7th from 7 p.m. - 10 p.m. (or longer) Where: Fornino, 187 Bedford Ave in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (Bedford stop on the L) What and How Much: All you can eat pizza, unlimited drinks (beer,......

EVENT: Do you just wanna dance, dance, dance? Well find out why tonight, as Columbia University neuroscientist Dave Sulzer and the university's Motor Performance Laboratory co-director, John Krakauer, make some sense out of the urge to shake it. They'll discuss brain activity and conduct a live experiment of sound manipulation. 6:30 p.m. // CUNY Grad Center [365 5th Ave] // Free MUSIC: DC's Le Loup join New Zealand's The Ruby Sons (pictured) at Union......

The Mountain Goats Will Never Sell Out As we've mentioned before, once upon a time John Darnielle promised fans at a Knitting Factory show that, even if he was playing Madison Square Garden someday, he would make the time to play a show at the Knit, his favorite club in the city. He may not be quite that big, but it's clear he's moved on from those once noble statements, considering his impressive and always......