Martial arts master and star of movies and television, Chuck Norris, is suing a New York publishing company along with a Brown University student who established an Internet site that passes along purported facts about him. The Norris-facts phenomena is a longtime Internet meme and the actor says that he doesn't mind when sites continue it as long as they are non-commercial. Ian Roberts, the Brown student who operates one Norris-facts site, teamed up with......

Former New York City Mayor and Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani is finding that his campaign for highest office is foundering in Florida--the state that his campaign has identified as a crucial crucible. The primary vote in the Sunshine State will occur on Jan. 29, and with approximately six weeks to go, Rudy's trailing competitors Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. According to a survey conducted by pollster Scott Rasmussen, Romney is tallying 27% support, followed by......

With street-side Christmas trees going for more each year and the average apartment size decreasing, we propose the adoption of a new holiday standard: Enjoy your Christmas Tree in a highball glass. To wit: Clear Creek Distillery’s Eau de Vie of Douglas Fir, 375 milliliters of pine flavored brandy, found at Red Hook booze and esoteric spirits emporium LeNell’s. This small, $45 bottle is cheaper and has a lesser environmental impact than deforestation, and will......

Resumes are being accepted to fill a sudden vacuum in the self-proclaimed “drug ring” that is Gawker. On Friday afternoon, at the end of a long Gawker post about palling around with the n + 1 crowd – who happen to be publishing a long think-piece on Gawker in their new issue – editor and cewebrity Emily Gould abruptly announced that managing editor Choire Sicha was to resign. And she would be joining him.......

Edward Albee’s 1958 play The Zoo Story was a watershed moment in American theater, despite being ignored for two years by New York producers. Though the riveting two character play marked the arrival of a significant new American voice, it first premiered in Germany; not until 1960 was The Zoo Story performed in the U.S, and then not even in New York, where it’s set. Albee’s breakthrough one-act concerns a random, ultimately violent encounter between......

Controversial publisher Judith Regan dropped a 70-page lawsuit on her old bosses at Harper Collins and News Corp yesterday. The $100 million defamation suit claims she was the victim of a smear campaign in order to protect Rudy Giuliani's presidential bid (read: Rupert Murdoch's political agenda). She states they asked her to lie to federal investigators about her one-time lover and former police commish, Bernard Kerik (who at the time was working with Regan on......

Standing at just under 2 feet tall on a "tower" display stand, and containing around 800 pages -- there's a new book in town! And it's not going to fit in many people's apartments. The pages contain 1200 photographs that capture the city, including shots from Henri Cartier-Bresson and Annie Leibowitz. As an accompaniment to the visuals there's written word provided by folks like EB White, John Updike and Tom Wolfe. While there's no price......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an unstable building at 37th Ave. and 31st St. in Queens, a stabbing on State St. and 3rd Ave. in Brooklyn, and an organ transport on the Cross Island Parkway in Queens. GrandOpening on the LES is following up its single-table storefront Ping Pong concept with another slice of Americana: the drive-in movie theater. $75 will secure all six passenger seats in a ragtop Ford Falcon. We recommend burning......

The NY Sun opens the books on Bellevue Hospital's creative output. That's right, Bellevue has been publishing literature under The Bellevue Literary Review. Perhaps it's about time the 271 year old walls began to talk. Even though the hospital drips darkness, "no tales from the wards have yet appeared in the books." This isn't to say it isn't allowed (they state it isn't encouraged or barred), but the rules of the press seem to prohibit......

You may know Peter Yarrow best by his first name. He was part of the '60s folk trio Peter, Paul & Mary. The group launched their career at The Bitter End in Greenwich Village in 1961 and went strong for nine years. Tonight Peter Yarrow is at Barnes & Noble (Lincoln Center) at 6pm for a performance as well as to sign copies of Puff, the Magic Dragon - which he's turned into a children's......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian struck at Richmond Terrace and Federal Place on Staten Island, a water rescue at Chambers St. and River Terrace off Manhattan, and a homicide at Bruner and Barnes Aves. in the Bronx. A Connecticut doctor lost his family yesterday after two men broke into his home and held them hostage, while one family member was taken to a nearby bank to withdraw money. After killing the man's......

Have you always longed to join the sleek, well-organized machine that is Gothamist.com? Well, now is your chance! We're looking to hire a full-time Director of Sales to manage our advertising sales and business development. The job will be on site at our office downtown. Here's the job description: Gothamist LLC, the leading network of local blogs, is looking for a full-time Director of Sales to develop and expand its client base of advertisers.......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a partial roof collapse on Union St. in Brooklyn, a person under a train at Coney Island and Brighton Beach Aves. in Brooklyn, and a slashing at Dyckman St. and Broadway in Manhattan. Artie Fufkin speaks! Paul Schaffer, who was the musical director of the Blues Brothers, keyboardist for Bill Murray's lounge singer character on SNL, and the bandleader for David Letterman's "The World's Most Dangerous Band" since 1982,......

There's a thought-provoking essay in the Observer suggesting it's time to take down the huge American flag in the heart of the terminal. The flag was placed in Grand Central soon after September 11, 2001, and MTA Metro-North spokeswoman says the flag's "nearly four stories tall" size is "basically unprecedented." (There is also a smaller, standard sized flag in the hall.) John Lumea explains how icons work in public spaces and how public spaces......

LAist was comped front row seats by the Dodgers due to Malingering being struck by a foul ball last week, and she came back with some great photos, and earlier made fun of 4th of July on Venice Beach. But the biggest stories of the week was that the Mayor's Hot Tamale was revealed, and that a Kwik-E-Mart was erected in Burbank. Phillyist was busy doing the Fourth of July up right, exercising their......

The Mayor's Office of Theater, Film, and Broadcasting, which coordinates film and television production and issues permits around the five boroughs, is considering rules that could potentially severely restrict the ability of even amateur photographers and filmmakers to operate in New York City. The NY Times reports that the city's tentative rules include requiring any group of two or more people who want to use a camera in a single public location for more......

David Rakoff is the author of the hilarious and best selling essay anthologies Fraud and Don't Get Too Comfortable, countless articles that have appeared in publications such as Vogue, GQ, and Salon, and has contributed to NPR's This American Life. Gothamist sat down with the writer to discuss his genesis and his moments of doubt. Why did you start writing and how did you pursue it? It all comes out of a bullying and narcissistic......

Miss Potter (directed by Chris Noonan) After Renée Zellweger's success playing a modern day British single gal in Bridget Jones' Diary, the producers of her movie from last winter Miss Potter must have thought they had a sure thing on their hands. Put Zellweger in a corset, reunite her with the hunky Ewan McGregor, give her an accent and introduce her to the built in Beatrix Potter fan base. It's gotta be solid gold. Of......

In one of those weird societal flip-flops, The New York Times today reports on a group of graffiti artists who are suing to limit the expropriation of their commercial property for public display. The Tats Cru and a dozen other street artists whose work don the walls of buildings all over the city are suing the author, publisher, and an exhibitor of a book about urban murals - aka in NYC. They feel that......

Adam Moss, editor-in-chief of New York magazine may have one of the most dangerous-looking offices in publishing this morning, as it is probably crowded with a number of large sharp-edged and -angled Ellies, or National Magazine Awards. New York was nominated for seven awards and its capture of five of them added an air of upset to the proceedings. MediaBistro's FishbowlNY live-blogged the event last night from Lincoln Center:9:16PM: The magic night for Adam ("I'm......

The Bancroft family, who owns a controlling interest in publicly traded Dow Jones & Co., Inc., is considering an unsolicited bid from Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. to purchase The Wall Street Journal. Trading in Dow Jones shares was halted temporarily after their price jumped 57%, or nearly $21 during the day. Murdoch is reportedly offering $60 a share for the company, which would make the total offer worth approximately $5 billion. The New York Times......

In the masses of offerings at this year's Tribeca Film Festival, there's quite a few strong New York-centric selections both in and out of competition to seek out. Granted at $25-$14 per, tickets for the festival don't come cheap, so if you're going to see something at the fest make it a local joint. Our favorite film so far at the festival has been West 32nd, a thriller directed by NYU alum Michael Kang (The......

38-year-old New Yorker Larry Smith has parlayed his extensive magazine experience (Yahoo! Internet Life, P.O.V., ESPN, Might) to create the online magazine that's not only named after him, it represents his vision for the future of populist storytelling: SMITH. Launched on January 6, 2006 (National Smith Day), the site features everything from photo essays to diaries, memoirs, interviews, blogs, and reader-generated content. The site has also spawned two book deals: one for its first webcomic,......

Randi Weingarten=Sandra Froman? Mayor Bloomberg had some fighting words for those who criticize his handling of the public schools. He compared his critics to the National Rifle Association: "You always do have the problem of a very small group of people who are single-issue focused having a disproportionate percentage of power. That's exactly the NRA." He also accused the UFT of wanting to roll back reforms:There's the political power of people who just want to......

We finally got around to reading the profile of fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld in the New Yorker. Certainly, he's got his quirks. But we liked learning about what Lagerfeld, who reads in English, French, German, and Italian, thought about one famous American writer:“For me, the perfect writing is E. B. White—that’s how one should write English. The sound, the language, what it evokes for me. I see New York with the eyes of his book......

Today the NY Times reviews a new show at the Storefront for Art and Architecture. Titled “Clip/Stamp/Fold: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196X-197X,” the exhibit explores 70 architectural magazines published in New York and elsewhere during the period. Pamphlets and building instruction manuals are included in the "little magazine" category. The most New York-centric covers described by Nicolai Ouroussoff feature an elephant attacking the Guggenheim Museum and a skyscraper made of Swiss cheese.......

Gallery-goers may have shown up at Julie Saul Gallery for last Thursday’s opening reception of Brian Ulrich’s Copia—stunning photographs that show how mass production permeates the everyday life of pop princesses and counterculture teens alike—but it was Roz Chast’s Theories of Everything series that sideswiped the show. Originally scheduled to close last month, the exhibit has been extended to February 10. And with good reason. People at the gallery were nudging their dates to take......

Have you sworn at the subway turnstile/bus display that says "Insufficient fare"? Have you suffered "Turnstile Groin" after trying to walk through with an insufficient fare Metrocard? Or do you hate the Metrocard vending machine with a secret passion? There may be a solution. It turns out that the MTA's Easy Pay program originally designed for express bus commuters is also available for subway and bus riders. Much like EZ Pass, the EasyPay Metrocard is......

Sunday. Usually, a quiet, contemplative day in the Blogosphere. But not here in the Ist-a-Verse. Nonono! Just look below and see all of the wild and crazy stuff our staffs are up to. In Austin, bands are beginning to confirm for SXSW and the rumor mill is up and running. Good thing, too, because we all know how much Austinites love live performances. Austin also found itself in the national spotlight, with Longhorn Legend......

Only a few more days until the end of the year (and the cut off for the 2006 Oscar season), so of course the movie theaters are glutted with choice new releases. If you have your copy of Bridget Jones' Diary always near the DVD player for easy access, might we suggest checking out Renée Zellweger in Miss Potter. Sort of like a Sex in the City but set during the Victorian era, Zellwegs plays......