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.

(c)2011 Nanci Ezzo, All rights reserved.

According to the weather prophets it should have been raining but it wasn’t raining so I went to the Tompkins Square Library to see if I could get Vol. 1 of Proust, but they didn’t have any Proust, and probably never do have any Proust (“Who’s Proust?”), so I decided to take out another novel instead, only to realize I didn’t have a library card, a wallet, or any form of ID, unless you count a cell phone, which I don’t. I did have cash, though.

On to Mast Books, five blocks down Avenue A, but first I encountered… The Racist. A drably turned-out white woman in her thirties, looking like a hipster gone to seed, possibly a junkie. In fact I’d already passed her a few minutes earlier on the way to the library, where I heard her shout racial slurs at more darkly hued people than herself outside the deli on 10^th Street, but I wasn’t really paying attention, and frankly it just seemed weird. She looked like a dyed-in-the-wool East Villager. Down on her luck, maybe, but a characteristic member of the neighborhood nonetheless. It was almost unthinkable. Read more…

Contrary to previous reports, The Bean is the one taking the “Crazy Landlord” space at Second Avenue and East Third Street, EV Grieve discovers. A call to the coffee shop’s First Avenue location confirms it will open an outpost there; but first, yet another location will open in the next week or so, at Broadway and 12^th Street.

Kevin FarleyChess continues at Tompkins Square Park despite yesterday’s earthquake.

When I was growing up in California, earthquakes were kind of fun. You got to hide under your desk or in your doorway, and whether you were in sixth or second grade your teacher always freaked out and rushed outside to the baseball field without providing any instruction to the kids.

The feeling of a southern California earthquake was unmistakable; it rattled the house and shook you with quick jolts. My sister and I would drop to the ground to feel the earth move, because we knew the sweet and powerful force would not last long. I loved earthquakes – their unpredictability, their distaste for shelves, and their short lifespan prevented me from getting bored. My mother used to tell me that earthquakes were the same feeling as riding the subway, which is maybe why I moved here (she was wrong). Read more…

Good morning, East Village.

A couple of jazz fixtures are back in Tompkins Square Park: While DNA Info previews this weekend’s Charlie Parker Jazz Festival (Sunday’s East Village installment will be headlined by Archie Shepp), EV Grieve notes that Giuseppi Logan, who recorded for the legendary ESP label and went on to live a life checkered with homelessness, is back to playing sax on his bench after hip surgery. The Local caught up with Mr. Logan last November, as you can see in the video above.

Ephemeral New York points to an entry in “The Inside Guide to Greenwich Village” indicating that the fabled St. Marks club The Dom only made it six months before it was invaded by “another element” with “absolutely no cool whatsoever.”

Gothamist points out that “On The Bowery,” Lionel Rogosin’s vérité portrait of the Bowery circa 1957, will return to Film Forum in November.

It’s just about quitting time — today, that means earthquake happy hours. On Twitter, La Lucha announced a “happy hour after shock” of two-for-one beers, while Hop Devil Grill invited followers to an “earthquake party” featuring $1 tacos. Even Butter Lane touted an “earthquake special”: “Mention the #earthquake and get BuyOneGetOne cucapkes, cakepops and Blue Bell ice cream!” Is Village Voice editor Tony Ortega taking advantage of these deals? Earlier today he tweeted, “@villagevoice editors: let’s cancel the 4 pm editors meeting because I want to have a drink — er, I mean, because there was an earthquake.”

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.

Stephen Rex Brown The Merchant’s House Museum, seen from The Local’s window.

At 1:39 p.m. today, I got on the phone with Mikel Travisano of New York City’s Historic House Trust. Next Tuesday he’ll speak at the Hudson Park Library at 66 Leroy Street about his role overseeing the $598,000 restoration of the Merchant’s House Museum. Mr. Travisano told me that small cracks in the house’s exterior bricks and stucco are being sealed in order to prevent rainfall infiltration that has damaged the interior plaster over time. The rear windows, which are over 100 years old (the house itself was built in 1832), will be meticulously restored off-site. In addition, radiators will be given new thermostatic valves (better for heat control) and the house’s electrical system will be upgraded. As Mr. Travisano spoke of all this in detail that I won’t go into here, the floor underneath me began shaking, and then my desk shook as well. Read more…

A posh condo at 40 Bond is cited in a $50 million lawsuit involving Sly Stone and his ex-manager, Curbed reports. The $7.5 million condo, which will be foreclosed next month, is used in court documents as an example of the former manager’s alleged mismanagement of the music legend’s assets. Mr. Stone — yes, of Family Stone fame — sued his ex-manager back in January for $50 million, charging that he had used music royalties to fund an opulent lifestyle.

Ryan Gosling still hasn’t said anything about breaking up that fight on Astor Place, and whether it was all a viral stunt as some blogs suspect. Yesterday, E! Online got some details from the photographer who shot the footage (seems Mr. Gosling offered one of the men $20 to end the scuffle), but she doesn’t say when it all went down. UsMagazine.com, which also shares an eyewitness account, says it happened Saturday (when the video was uploaded), but EV Grieve readers spot a clue that they believe proves it occurred sometime before the Flaming Cactus displays went up on July 30. And with this, When Did Ryan Gosling Break Up That Fight? becomes a bigger mystery than Who Fought Gavin DeGraw? Update | 6:25 p.m. Valerie Herrera tells OMGICU that it happened June 24 and it wasn’t a stunt.

Stephen Rex Brown

Last week we reported on Nublu’s fight to stay open on Avenue C, despite the State Liquor Authority’s ruling to cancel the nightclub’s liquor license owing to its location less than 200 feet from a Kingdom Hall of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Now owner Ilhan Ersahin, who is currently traveling, tells us over e-mail, “Our only way to return is to get beer and wine at this point. Our lawyer says it is impossible to get liquor back.” Meanwhile, the comments section of our original post continues to buzz with outrage over the club’s shuttering, though one person, T.M., did defend the move: “People like Ersahin, who laugh in the face of community standards, should just have their license revoked.” The rest of the comments, as you can see below, varied between between praising Nublu and chastising the SLA. Have a different opinion? Throw it into the Chatter Box. Read more…

Roey Ahram

Good morning, East Village.

316 East Third Street isn’t the only building fighting for survival around here: Bowery Boogie circulates a letter asking Councilmember Margaret Chin to uphold landmark status for 135 Bowery.

Meanwhile it’s too late for a townhouse that dated back to 1852, at 331 East Sixth Street— an EV Grieve reader snaps a photo documenting the latest state of its demise.

It’s not all gloom and doom as far as preservation goes. The Epoch Times has a report from the scene of the White Roof Project we told you about earlier: “Housing developments that faced obliteration multiple times are now being painted as the beacon of hope for a sustainable future in New York City.”

Elsewhere in sustainability, Goat Town has completed its backyard, where Eater reports that the restaurant is growing lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, and the like.

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…

Stephen Rex Brown The rowhouse at 316 East Third Street.

Last week, preservationists doubled down on their last-minute effort to protect a 177-year-old row house that the owner hopes to demolish and replace with a seven-story, 33-unit apartment building.

A quartet of local preservation groups began pressing the city Landmarks Preservation Commission early this month. In a letter you can read below, the coalition cited the building’s historic qualities, which are reminiscent of 35 Cooper Square, another Federal-style row house that was demolished in May amid much controversy.

“The significance of this and the handful of other surviving pre-Civil War rowhouses to Alphabet City cannot be underestimated,” the preservationists wrote in a letter to the commission on August 2, referring to 316 East Third Street. “Built for merchants associated with the East River’s thriving shipbuilding industry, they recall the neighborhood’s formative years and are all that remain from its heyday as the dry dock neighborhood.”

The letter also noted that the commission had singled out the property as being “eligible for historic designation” in a 2008 study assessing the impact of rezoning in the area. Read more…

Ryan Gosling is no stranger to the East Village— he’s been spotted prepping for his role in “Blue Valentine” on East 7^th Street, chowing down with the fam at John’s of 12^th Street, and hitting up 16 Handles with his “Crazy, Stupid, Love” co-star Emma Stone. But he’s never done anything this conspicuous— Lainey Gossip found a video posted to YouTube over the weekend that seems to show the movie star breaking up a fight in the middle of Astor Place. Read more…

ArtsBeat reviews a couple of Fringe Festival productions playing at the newly revived Bleecker Street Theater. According to Andy Webster, the score for “Winner Take All (A Rock Opera)” is performed by “an R&B powerhouse who could out-sing Satan with her hands tied behind her back.” Meanwhile Anita Gates thinks “Chasing Heaven” is “funny, thoughtful, brightly acted and about as timely as a play can get.”

Courtesy of Lola No relation to The Local.

Last week, James Cruickshank, the owner of Whitmans on East Ninth Street, threw a party relaunching Lola, the apparel company he runs with elementary-school buddy Emmett Shine. The duo started the line in their late teens (both are now 27) but recently put it on hiatus so that Mr. Cruickshank could devote time to opening his restaurant, and so that Mr. Shine could focus on Gin Lane Media, the branding and design company he runs, along with Lola, out of 263 Bowery.

“Every single day we received e-mails from people around the world asking us when we were going to relaunch,” said Mr. Shine. Read more…