Ben Yakas

For over 20 years, New Yorkers have been told that Dan Smith, a possibly-ageless man placed on this Earth for the purpose of posting flyers with his face on it, Will Teach You Guitar. So when I found myself face-to-face with him recently inside a bar on the Upper West Side, I had to ask: what else could Dan Smith teach us?

[Also check out this follow-up with Dan Smith answering more burning questions about his life]

Murray was being honored by Poets House at this year's event with the Elizabeth Kray Award for "service to the field of poetry." (His neighbor and friend Platt was also being honored with the same award.) The mutually-appreciative relationship between Poets House and Murray seems both out of left field and also completely of a kind with Murray's Manic Pixie Dream Dude public persona.

"My wife has a line, it's a wonderful line," Baldwin told me. "If I'm whining, kvetching about something, my wife will turn to me and say, 'Nobody feels sorry for Alec Baldwin.' She'll turn literally to anybody on the street corner, 'Do you feel sorry for Alec Baldwin? Anyone? Anyone?'"

Through its many sequels, the series has somehow transcended floppy disks, forgettable villains, chronological anomalies, endless backyard BBQs, and the death of one of its lead actors in real life to become the most brilliant, batshit-crazy, ethnically-diverse popcorn action film franchise of the 21st century. 

It's increasingly popular with people suffering from a wide variety of maladies, from insomnia and anxiety to Crohn's disease and fibromyalgia. Some swear by it for relief from migraines, while others have tried it to mitigate the side effects of chemotherapy. Is CBD some sort of super medicine, or is it about as real as Simpson and Son's Revitalizing Tonic?

[Also check out the second part of the long-form CBD piece]

Are you being mildly pummeled by your chair? Are you throwing slightly soggy popcorn into your mouth? Are you wondering whether you may have just experienced a low-level epileptic seizure? Are all of your senses being distractingly engaged in sync with the action on the screen? Then you're not watching a regular, boring old 2D/3D movie—you're watching 4DX baby.

I uncovered the backstory behind a viral video of a bunch of Florida middle schoolers who performed a coordinated dance to footage of 9/11.

After investing over $5 million in upgrades and years of exhaustive work to turn the space into a state-of-the-art facility custom-built for large scale shows, Eastern Effects is in danger of being closed to become a temporary staging site for Gowanus Canal sewage overflow tanks.

Gonzalez-Torres's work is based around taking common materials, whether it's lightbulbs, pieces of candy or a recording of handclaps, and transforming them into something visceral, emotional and surprising.

About 130 out of the 260 pieces of artwork currently on display in the subway system were made by women.

If Guardians is the hit it's shaping up to be, it could be the death-knell for overly-serious, by-the-comic-book adaptations. Or at the very least, it could encourage the major studios to take more chances, to let directors stamp more of their personality on the films, to experiment with obscure heroes and locations.

There are few vicarious thrills compared with the likes of Goodfellas and The Wolf Of Wall Street. This is a movie about old men reckoning with their own destructive decisions.

She said, "I think if you ever get a chance

to spread a little peace and joy,

you get it back tenfold,"

and, she added, this was no ploy.

"So there's no motivation behind this,

[except] to make people happy.

It's become a neighborhood staple."

And there's nothing wrong with being a little sappy.

For more than 30 years, the Outsider Art Fair has been one of the world's preeminent showcases of self-taught artists from around the globe.

When the movie sticks to the smaller scale of Parker's adolescence—high school parties, class field trips, bodega cats and thai food outings—it is a gem of a comic book movie, which seems equally inspired by Hughes's '80s high school comedies and the original '60s Spider-Man comic run. 

[Also check out this review of Spider-Man: Far From Home]

"Through my research, I discovered that Jews have been using cannabis for centuries...had I known that in Hebrew school, I might have been a little bit more interested in what was going on."

Hanging out with the extremely chill dogs of Westminster Dog Show 2020.

For decades, Lincoln Center has struggled to execute a plan to redesign the concert hall the New York Philharmonic calls home.

Spectre, while having more surface-level pleasures (the martinis and cars and hulk-like henchmen and overly-chatty bad guys and nameless conquests are back, baby!) than Quantum Of Solace, has more problems and plot holes than all the water-deprived deserts in Bolivia. 

As the city eased out of the morass of pandemic restrictions and cultural institutions started to plan ahead for the future, The 92nd Street Y embraced what they call a "post-COVID transformation."

She even remained perfectly in character as she performed a burlesque dance with her beloved log, which started out, like so many burlesque dances, innocent and kitschy, only to suddenly incorporate enough log licking and gyrating to have me deeply concerned about splinters.

As a lifelong New Yorker who eagerly tells anyone within earshot about how I am going to die in this rat-infested, trash dump of a city (dear lord, I love it), I don't know why people are surprised when I tell them I have never been to Los Angeles. 

It doesn't seem possible, but The Neighborsmakes The Room look like Eyes Wide Shut. 

Treating poetry—an art form that demands contemplation—like instant ramen might seem like a contradictory idea, but Poetry Society program director Charif Shanahan said "it's about the relatability inherent in poetry."