Author Archive

Arts Brief: Get your Zs

Written by Cate Smithson on . Posted in Arts & Film, Posts

We always knew something magical would happen if we crossed Larry David and Gene Simmons; and on Aug. 24, the proof will be broadcast on the IFC Channel. Z Rock, a semi-scripted television series, stars the Brooklyn-based band Z02—comprising brothers Paulie and David Zablidowsky and their pal Joey Cassata—and follows its two-faced existence as both
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Tompkins Square Park: Hip to Be Square

Written by Cate Smithson on . Posted in Posts


Tompkins Square Park isn’t what it used to be. Sure, on an evening stroll you still run a fair risk of having your neck licked by a guy tripping on acid. But since the Tompkins Square Park riots—20 years ago today—gentrification has left its mark.

In an attempt to capture the energy of a time when the East Village was a playground for junkies and gangs, squatters and the homeless, photographer Q. Sakamaki recently released a book of photos spanning 20 years in the park—bounded by avenues A and B between 7th and 10th streets—aptly titled Tompkins Square Park.

Continue reading "Tompkins Square Park" here.
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Bash Compactor: A Starr Was Born

Written by Cate Smithson on . Posted in Bash Compactor, Posts

Transsexual queen bee Allanah Starr—2008’s Adult Video Network Transsexual Performer Of The Year—is everything you’ve ever wished you could be: popular, over-the-top sexy and eternally 21 years old. Starr—whose actual age is “somewhere between 25 and death”—celebrated her annual 21st birthday party last weekend at tranny landmark Lucky Cheng’s on the Lower East Side. Showgirls
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Suck It: Too Much ‘True Blood’

Written by Cate Smithson on . Posted in Arts & Film, Posts


Vampires exist and live amongst us in the city—at least that’s what a sorta new viral marketing campaign would have us believe, anyway. Those posters are everywhere—“vampires are immoral,” “friends don’t let friends drink friends,” et al—and are all just the tip of the viral marketing iceberg for a new Alan Ball-created show on HBO called True Blood...

Continue reading "True Blood" here.
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Panic at the Disco Boys Succumb to Their Wildest Desires—If Bandslash Babes Get Their Way

Written by Cate Smithson on . Posted in Music, Posts

Gay porn: It's not just for men anymore! Not content to sit back and let guys have all the fun relishing lesbian sex, women—who knows how many—are creating homoerotic smut of their own. Between Kurt Cobain and Dave Grohl.

“Bandslash”—which refers the punctuation mark between the names of involved parties (Cobain/Grohl, for instance)—is a genre of fictional stories written, mostly by women, about famous rock stars ditching the hot groupies for a little experimentation with one another. The trend remains largely unheard of outside online slash communities because the general public still can’t handle the concept of female sexuality...

Continue reading "Slasher Girls" here.
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It’s a Small World After All: World Voices Project Makes it So

Written by Cate Smithson on . Posted in Arts & Film, Posts

Mono-lingual speakers:  Are you constantly reminded of your ignorance relative to cultured city-dwellers fluent in two, three or four languages? Do you curse your parents for not raising you in Berlin so as to equip you with a sufficient grasp on extra-American ways of life? Next time you’re at the South Street Seaport, take a
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