The first mix tapes I made involved little to no thinking. My sisters and I would throw together tapes for car trips right after my parents got their first CD player. Our pickins’ were limited to whatever my dad had ordered from the Colombia House CD club, so they involved

In New York, there are two options for going to comedy clubs: There are the kind that charge a pint of plasma for a cover, have drink minimums on their $9 drinks made with well liquor that should be used to polish silverware and the comedians who base their routines

New York is a weird city for grocery shopping. Most stores don’t have aisles wide enough to fit two carts, if they fit any carts at all. Most people shop every few days for specific meals, because hauling one bag through the subway is easier than seven. The smaller shopping

As I watched a group of three vaguely-European twenty somethings wrangle their luggage and musical instruments in hardcases, I thought “Oh yeah, CMJ is this week.” They could be in town with musical instruments this week by pure coincidence, but I doubt it. This week, pretty much every show in

Abandoned buildings attract a wide variety of people: heroin addicts, the homeless, architects, film students, etc. Their future usually involves demolition or conversion into a luxury condo, and some abandoned luxury condos have become home to heroin addicts as well. I’ll never be able to call the condos attractive, but

My friend said he was “free like a bird.” I pointed out that we were at Fish Bar, and he shouldn’t be talking about birds. He then claimed to be “free like a fish?” We decided it was best to stop changing cliches to be about fish. Then he said,

It’s hard to find places that are more badass than ABC No Rio. They started out as an illegal art exhibition, and has turned into one of the biggest zine libraries in the country. (They also have a darkroom and silkscreening facilities at very reasonable rates). For the past six