The Times shines a light on “Sweet,” the stand-up comedy showcase that started at the Slipper Room in 2004 and moved to Ella on Avenue A last year (the seventh season kicks off this week). The host, “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” warm-up Seth Herzog, has lured big-name comics like Jim Gaffigan and Zach Galifianakis – many of them when they were on the cusp of fame.

Stephen Rex Brown Jim Power’s planter honoring the 9/11 first responders at its new home on Seventh Avenue.

A 9/11 memorial in the West Village got a surprise addition to its collection on Saturday. In a frenzied mix of patriotism and general disgust with the state of Astor Place, “Mosaic Man” Jim Power decided to move his planter dedicated to first responders from its original spot.

Mr. Power said the decision came to him after learning that the Walk of Remembrance honoring Rev. Mychal Judge, a firefighter who died while giving last rites to a comrade at the World Trade Center, would pass by the Tiles For America memorial at Seventh Avenue and 11th Street.
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Courtesy of Erik Foss. The artist with the show’s centerpiece, “Rapture.”

Erik Foss, co-owner of East Village fixtures Lit Lounge and the adjoining Fuse Gallery, is known to the downtown art world mainly as a curator with an eye for musicians and counterculture types: when The Local last encountered the lanky 38-year-old he was hosting a reception for rocker-turned-artist David Yow. On September 11, he’ll open his first solo show in New York City as an artist, at Mallick Williams & Co. in Chelsea. If the date seems like an odd one for what should be a celebratory occasion, it isn’t — the exhibition, “Avarice,” is a reflection on the events of a decade ago. Read more…

How long will the Flaming Cactus display remain in Cooper Square? Possibly until June 2012. According to a City Room post, that’s how long the city has given the Animus Arts Collective (which first pitched the art project back in 2009) till they have to take down the colorful zip ties.

When he’s not the stage manager at the Jekyll and Hyde Club theme restaurant, Peter DeGiglio is the host of a theatrical talk show, “The Skinny,” in which he riffs on the week’s local and national news and gabs with fellow actors, writers, and comedians. Think of him as Jon Stewart, but not on television, and with more obscure guests (past personalities have included comedian Rusty Ward and political commentator Sally Kohn). When The Local heard that Mr. DeGiglio was bringing his act (previously at The Tank) to the Kraine Theater on East 4th Street, we asked him to ply his skills on some recent East Village stories. Watch as he tackles the Tompkins Square rats, Ryan Gosling, Dov Charney’s restaurant, and more. Is this man ready for prime time? You tell us.

We’ll see you Tuesday, and have a lovely Labor Day weekend.

“The Skinny” at The Kraine Theater (85 East Fourth Street between the Bowery and Second Avenue) on the first Wednesday of every month, beginning Sept. 7. Tickets $10. Visit www.horsetrade.info or call 212-868-4444.

Cyn Darling Ariel Palitz with Darryl McDaniels from Run DMC.

Ariel Palitz, the owner of Sutra Lounge and a member of Community Board 3, chatted with The Local about misconceptions about hip-hop, honoring the legends, and the return of CB 3 meetings. This evening Sutra will host a “Strictly Old School” hip-hop extravaganza featuring the Cold Crush Brothers and Grand Wizzard Theodore on the turntables.

So what’s going down tonight at Sutra?

It’s “Strictly Old School” — a new series we do once or twice a month. We decided to get the old school emcees into the DJ booth. Darryl McDaniels from RUN DMC was here – that blew everybody away. He did like five Run DMC hits. It’s such a tight community that other artists show up. Kangol from UTFO came up and sang “Roxanne Roxanne.” Slick Rick was here. Melle Mel got on the mic. Read more…

It’s not quite sweater weather, but as nights and mornings get crisper, fashion is making the transition with light cover-ups. The button-up shirt is one example: We’ve seen it paired with a summer sundress or with shorts and tights. Denim, chambray and white linen (some of our favorite looks) maintain their shape best when worn as outerwear. With extra material, the button-up can be tied in a knot and worn over a dress or longer skirt. See how Villagers are sporting them on the street.

Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures Peter Gatien today.

Many students moving into NYU’s Palladium dorm this week likely had no clue that their new East 14th Street address was, until 1998, home to a notorious nightclub of the same name. Now a documentary by Billy Corben, director of “Cocaine Cowboys” (a cult-hit chronicle of the Miami drug scene in the 1980s) revisits the era when the club was a fixture of New York City nightlife, and when its owner, Peter “King of Nightlife” Gatien, was at the heart of two dramatic court cases that represented a larger fight between the hedonism of the late eighties and the Giuliani-induced law and order of the mid-nineties.  Read more…

WikiCommons The poet in 1939.

So let’s hear it for the greatest writer ever to live in the East Village. What’s that, you say? James Fenimore Cooper? Leon Trotsky? William S. Burroughs? Allen Ginsberg?

Hmm. No offense to the above authors, but surely you jest. The greatest writer ever to settle in the East Village, a transatlantic literary god whose appearance was as unexpected as that hawk showing up in Tompkins Square Park, was the English-born poet, W.H. Auden, who lived at 77 St. Marks Place from 1953 to 1972. In 1917, Trotsky had edited a dissident newspaper in the same building. The painter Larry Rivers was already living there when Auden and his lover, Chester Kallman, moved in. And the man who had previously occupied their railroad apartment was an abortionist. For neighborhood “color,” you can’t top that.

The coming month is a big one in Auden’s posthumous career. (He died in Vienna on September 29, 1973.) And this fortnight, in which we will mark the 10th anniversary of 9/11, will also be a 10th anniversary of sorts for him. Seventy-two years ago today, he began writing his aphoristic, agonized, and intensely lyrical meditation on the outbreak of World War II, “September 1, 1939.” It was composed shortly after he moved to New York with his pal Christopher Isherwood (“Berlin Stories,” “A Single Man”), and 62 years later, a few days after Mohammed Atta & co. brought down the Twin Towers, the poem took on a second life among the smart set on both sides of the Atlantic. Read more…

Scott Lynch

If you don’t feel like fighting the crowds down on Houston Street to hear David Simon (writer and producer of “The Wire” and “Treme”) speak at the BMW Guggenheim Lab tonight, why not watch the event stream live, right here at The Local? Grab some popcorn (of the praline variety, of course) and check back here as the 7 p.m. start time nears, to watch Mr. Simon talk about capturing cities on film.

Phoenix Eisenberg

Saturday was a day of closed stores, empty streets, and shortages of D batteries, but one movie theater kept its doors open. At 22 East 12th Street stands Cinema Village, a charming three-screen arthouse theater built in 1963. The marquee (a throwback to an era of cinema that has come close to extinction) was free of letters on Saturday, but inside were two committed cinephiles, Genevieve Havemeyer and Matthew Reichard, who braved the storm on their bicycles so that customers could see movies like “Mozart’s Sister,” a French film that imagines Maria Anna Mozart’s friendship with the children of Louis XV. Read more…

If Hurricane Irene threw a wrench in your plans to attend the final performances of Fringe Festival, fear not: The lineup of encore productions has just been announced. The 18 shows, set to run from September 9 to September 26, include “Facebook Me,” which was well received by The Lo-Down last week. Update: Some of the shows canceled over the weekend have been rescheduled for September 1 through September 4 at the Laurie Beechman Theater in Midtown.

Jenn Pelly

Perennial indie-rock darling Stephen Malkmus, best known as the frontman of Pavement, is performing at Other Music tonight, playing acoustic songs off of his new release “Mirror Traffic” (NPR is currently streaming the album). The store will close at 8 pm for the 9 pm performance, after which Mr. Malkmus will sign copies of the LP. Other Music’s Website predicts that “this one is guaranteed to be a madhouse.” No one had started lining up as of 5 pm, but don’t be surprised if the line grows to look something like the above one for a Superchunk in-store last year.  If you’re a Pavement fan and you don’t make it in, you may want to walk a couple of blocks over to Great Jones Cafe, where the band’s bassist, Mark Ibold, still puts in shifts as a bartender.

Eva OstrowskaSamantha Glovin as a café waitress and Andrew W. Hsu as Liao Chen in “The Fourth State of Matter”

In “The Fourth State of Matter” by Joseph Vitale, directed by Robert Angelini, a brilliant Chinese astrophysics student studying at an American university has murdered his beloved academic mentor, an eminent cosmologist. Loosely based on shootings at the University of Iowa in 1991, the play explores the genesis of this tragedy, finding parallels in cosmology and its exploration of the universe and its origins.

Played by Andrew W. Hsu, Liao Chen is a stranger adrift in a foreign land, dealing with the effects of his mother’s mental illness and the threat of fierce competition from fellow students for academic honors. These particles making up Chen’s existence culminate in the murder around which the play is set — the cataclysmic Big Bang, so to speak. Read more…

Angelo Fabara David Yow

Fuse Gallery, behind Lit Lounge, has seen its share of musicians moonlighting as artists. Among others, the space has hosted artwork by the likes of Hank Williams III, Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers, Nick Zinner and Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Conrad Keely of …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead.

Last night, David Yow held court at an opening reception that drew J.G. Thirlwell, the lead singer of industrial band Foetus, as well as other admirers of Mr. Yow’s bands, The Jesus Lizard and Scratch Acid. Mr. Yow, best known for vocals that alternate between mumbling and shrieking as well as onstage antics that at one point got him arrested for indecent exposure in Cincinnati, was polite and soft-spoken. He was dressed down (or perhaps up — he has been known to favor the shirtless look, after all) in a button-down shirt and spectacles.

When Erik Foss, the owner of Fuse Gallery, bought a painting titled “Go Figure,” depicting an erect penis, Mr. Yow texted his girlfriend, “I have tears in my eyes.” She responded, “I love you. Stop crying.”

The Local sat down with Mr. Yow to talk about his new calling.
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NYPL The Bowery in 1895.

Lately, the Bowery has started to look more like Dubai and a whole lot less like a poor man’s Broadway. But for at least three hours on Sunday, old-time songs will echo on the street once again, as a connoisseur of vaudeville songs and a historian lead a walking tour of music from the Bowery’s heyday. Bree Benton, accompanied by a viola and accordion, will sing songs like “My Brudda Sylvest,” and “Yiddle On Your Fiddle, Play Some Ragtime” (which was written by one of the former Lower East Side’s most famous sons, Irving Berlin.)

“The songs are so full of life, they really speak to the people — the common people,” said Ms. Benton, who will play the character of Poor Baby Bree, a down-and-out kid from the Lower East Side. “People who couldn’t afford to be entertained on Broadway; they went to the Bowery.” Read more…

You may remember David Yow as the shirtless and sudoriferous showman that fronted The Jesus Lizard (if not, think of him as the Iggy Pop of the grunge era). As Brooklyn Vegan points out, Mr. Yow is also an accomplished visual artist. His paintings and digital drawings will be on display at a reception tonight at Fuse Gallery, adjoining Lit.

Courtesy of Lit Crawl Henry Chang reading from a planter box on Bleecker.

You might normally steer clear of neighborhood bar crawlers, but next month, you may well want to join a couple of culturally enlightened crawls. First, on September 7, 30 art galleries around the Lower East Side will host openings from 6 p.m. till 8 p.m. The Lo-Down has the full list today.

Meanwhile, a few days later on September 10, the annual Lit Crawl will take over 18 bars, a coffee shop, and a bookstore in the East Village and Lower East Side. The free event (an offspring of San Francisco’s Litquake festival that came to New York in 2008) encourages participants to crawl from bar to bar, hearing readings by the likes of Gregory Young (co-host of the Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast), Madison Smartt Bell, downtown poet Steve Dalachinsky, and dozens more. Events include a game of literary “Jeopardy!” featuring FSG authors, a “six-word memoir slam” inspired by Hemingway, and a karaoke event in which you can reenact author interviews that appeared in “Bomb” magazine. For the full calendar, see Lit Crawl’s official site.

Mr. Eisold with Taylor Mead.

Local avant synth band Cold Cave has canceled the rest of its summer tour “due to unforeseen illness,” according to a statement. Singer Wesley Eisold, who is resting at an undisclosed location outside of his East Village home, revealed in a series of text messages that a road trip to Ohio for two shows during the weekend of August 12 was to blame.

“Let’s just not mention the names of the substances,” Mr. Eisold said of the partying during that trip. “There wasn’t any other way to get through these past few months on tour. Not to sound too serious.”

Becka Diamond, a DJ and downtown fashion fixture who accompanied the band, said, “I don’t think Ohio will ever be the same.”  Read more…