• Plasticman, along with Jammer and Skepta, create a "post-jungle diaspora" tonight at Rothko. Perhaps the open bar from 10-11 will help you figure out what the hell that means. [flavorpill]
• Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel will read from her Dictionary of Republicanisms tonight at 7. It's no Talking Bush doll, but we imagine there will be some good knock knock jokes. Barnes & Noble at 82nd Street and Broadway.
• The Broken Social Scene show at Webster Hall is sold out, but try and bully your way in anyway: Canadians seldom put up a fight. [Upcoming]

• The Bar Mitzvah Disco Variety Show takes over Mo Pitkins, featuring authors, comedians, and "a smoke machine operator named Marty." And, of course, bar mitzvah videos. It'll definitely be more entertaining than your own entry into adulthood. [MoPitkins]
• (I Am) Nobody's Lunch examines "how news and information are disseminated, and the way in which each of us forms beliefs based on the knowledge we gather." Also, there's singing. Logically. [flavorpill]
• Jill Sobule, best known for her sarcastic teen anthem "Supermodel," steps out of the Clueless soundtrack and into respectability with a show tonight at Joe's Pub. Don't expect her to kiss a girl, though. That was just for the music video. [Paper]

• The first-ever WYSIWYG Film Festival, tonight at P.S. 122, features short films and videos from videobloggers. It's less dorky when you watch with a group. [Ovation]
• Over at the Sex Museum, Barbara Nitke presents an erotic slideshow and then discusses her pending lawsuit, Nitke and The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom vs. John Ashcroft. Boobies for all and hating on Ashcroft — just what the Founding Fathers intended. [MoS]
• The Coachella documentary screens at Union Square. It's not as cool as actually attending the festival, but it's not as sweaty or exhausting, either. [flavorpill]

• The Section Quartet brings some class to the Mercury Lounge with their classical chops and fancy instruments, which they'll use to interpret the work of Radiohead. Go and reminisce about the first time you heard Kid A. [flavorpill]
• Billy Joel takes a break from being a has-been to perform at Madison Square Garden. Just be careful walking home after the show: if Billy's behind the wheel, no one's safe. [Upcoming]
• Lars von Trier made a film for his senior thesis; it won Best Film at 1984 Munich Film Festival. Not to make you feel woefully inadequate about your college career or anything. [Paper]

Friday:
• Serena Maneesh, the best thing to come from Norway since Kjartan Fl gstad, plays at Northsix. [Paper]
• Movies for socially-conscious people: Why We Fight, a level-headed look into the American War Machine, and How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (And Enjoy It), a documentary on the career of Melvin Van Peebles. [flavorpill]
Saturday:
• Sophie B. Hawkins (yes, that one) performs at the Canal Room tonight. Go on: it's not embarassing once it's for nostalgia's sake. [Upcoming]
Sunday:
• Writers Working features contemporary authors reading from works-in-progress. Go and tell James Oliver Cury, Jen Nails, Intern Hugh and others what they're doing wrong before it's too late. [WW]
• Pantsless fun on the subway? We're so in. [Improv Everywhere]

The trick to being an aging action star is figuring out a way to remain relevant once you are way past your shit-kicking prime. You can risk ridicule by trotting your past heroes out for another go-around; you can choose to enter a completely new line of equally hazardous work; or, you can accept that things are really out of your hands and just embrace what you have become. In the case of black belt Brawny man Chuck Norris, that would be the subject of a mythic compendium of widely e-mailed "facts." From his website:

• Under the Radar 2006, running tonight through Sunday, presents 14 contemporary theater pieces at the Public Theater and its partner locations. Seeing as the pieces are of the "too hip to be popular" genre, we imagine you'll have no problem scoring tix. [flavorpill]
• Stars Like Fleas, Charles Atlas and Roxy Pain, who "shoot deathrays from their eyeballs," perform at Tonic. Who could ask for anything more? [Upcoming]
• Filmmaker Michael Ferris Gibson spent 24 hours on Craigslist and walked away with a movie. Not quite as good as a guinea pig or a free room and board in exchange for sex, but you can't be lucky all the time. [Paper]

• Screening at the Film Forum, The Fall of Fujimori documents the corrupt and inhumane career of the ex-Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori — who, despite his dishonest past, is "still popular among Peruvians." Documentary movie stars, they get away with everything. [flavorpill]
• In order to write her memoir The Year of Yes, Maria Dahvana Headley agreed to go out with every person who asked her for an entire year. The working assumption behind this premise being that people actually ask writers out — GUFFAW! Barnes & Noble on Astor Place at 7. [Paper]
• The Bon Savants play at the Mercury Lounge, with Billioniare Boys Club and 1986 opening. Clever names for clever people. [Upcoming]

• Arthur Danto, professor of philosophy and ridiculous event titles, lectures at the School of Visual Arts on "Embodied Meanings as Aesthetic Ideas." [flavorpill]
• Hiroshima Mon Amour, a French movie set in Japan, gives you twice the bang for your cultural buck at the French Institute. Thrifty and uplifting, we're sure. [Paper]
• Hard-Fi, the newest incarnation of the British band that comes to town and takes all our women and booze, plays at the Bowery Ballroom tonight. [Upcoming]

• For the priviliged individuals who actually practice federal holidays, Come Share the Dream includes discussion, music, and a documentary in the city's largest tribute to MLK. [flavorpill]
• A little less respect and a lot more vodka is involved in Sweet Paprika, the comedy show hosted by Allison Castillo and Ophira Eisenberg. Tonight's show kicks off at 9 at The D-Lounge, 101 East 15th Street.
• This second comedy show is different from the first in that it's called "Tell Your Friends" and it's being held at Lolita at 8. Feel free to make other distinctions as you wish. [Upcoming]

Friday:
• One, Two, Three, the Jimmy Cagney Cold War classic, plays tonight through Thursday at the Film Forum. If you were hoping for a little less crime and a little more puppetry, the Landmark Sunshine screens The Muppet Movie at midnight. [flavorpill & Paper]
• "Too Art for TV" combines animation and Fighting-the-Man in a display of art from "animated minds long repressed by television's corporate demands." The Stay Gold Gallery (451 Grand St. Brooklyn, NY) hosts an opening reception tonight from 7-11.
Saturday:
• The English Beat's Friday show is sold out, but tickets are still available for Saturday night at the Canal Room. Hurry; the demand for British ska from the 80s is obviously very, very high. [flavorpill]
• Akron/Family plays at the Knitting Factory tonight. To save you some time, we'll go ahead and tell you: it's a city in Ohio. [Upcoming]
Sunday:
• The dancing kids will be at Avalon for "I Have a Dream," which features "a who's who of the teeth-grinding circuit." MLK did not die in vain. [Sunday]

• 'Hoos in the Media features UVA alums and a discussion on "issues facing the media today," like bitches, skanks and hoos. (We had to, really.) [UVANYC]
• Coporeal, opening tonight at PPOW Gallery, features a compilation of Carolee Schneemann's "edgy and often under-the-radar" work. That's code for "wildly unpopular but likely to become appreciated once she's long dead." [flavorpill]
• We Are Scientists plays the Bowery Ballroom tonight. Urban Outfitters sells an ironic t-shirt with the same slogan tomorrow. [Upcoming]

• Those who can't perform, produce. Those who produce and then, on the side, insist on performing until Kanye West's label finally signs them, call themselves SA-RA Creative partners. Tonight at the Canal Room. [flavorpill]
• The 92nd Street Y hosts Philip Seymour Hoffman for a screening and discussion of his Oscar-rocket Capote. Truman himself apprently debuted In Cold Blood (the film's subject) from the very same room. Just to add to the "specialness" factor. [Paper]
• An RSVP and (at least) two corduroy items are required at the second meeting of The Corduroy Appreciation Club, tonight at the Dove. Just wanted to get the rules out there, because it's important that everyone take this seriously. [Corduroy Club]

For actors afflicted with the crippling, and relationship-hampering, effects of fame, there exists but one reliable outlet for companionship: the anonymous Craigslist come-on:

• Lindsay Robertson, Alex Balk, and Jon Friedman host tonight's Ritalin Reading at Mo Pitkins, where no author will bore you for more than five minutes. A bunch of other people will be there, too, but that's as many names as we have attention for. (The jokes, they write themselves.) [RitalinReadings]
• Schizophrenic band Cordero brings its "diverse" indie rock/Latin-pop fusion to the hipster homogeneity of the Mercury Lounge. [Upcoming]
• Gardar Eide Einarsson presents Ship of Fools, a play written by Ted Kaczynski, our beloved Unabomber. Each ticket comes with a free pass to a Department of Homeland Security holding cell. [flavorpill]

• Tonight at Mo Pitkins, cartoonists try really hard to convince you a) that cartoons are a valid form of art and b) that cartoonists are socially viable creatures. Uptown, Neil Gaiman, so valid and viable that his stick-figures are called "novels," gets an entire event to himself at the 92nd Street Y. [flavorpill & Upcoming]
• Nepotism reigns at tonight's reading of The Best American Magazing Writing 2005. 7PM at Half King, where everybody knows your name. [Half King]
• The Oxonian Society hosts a lecture by Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, but they won't tell you where the lecture is until you've registered. Because when your speaker is party to sensitive intelligence concerning color codes, you have to up security. [Paper]

Friday:
• Like champagne and strawberries or Sonny and Cher, pairing the Guggenheim's RUSSIA! exhibit and Diplo's "baile funk" makes them each component a little better. Enjoy the duo tonight at Flavorpill's First Fridays shindig. [flavorpill]
• Tonight is different from every other night at the Mercury Lounge in that the performance of Holy Fuck will involve instruments you care about, like toy laser-guns. [Paper]
Saturday:
• In honor of its provocative sex scene involving a table spread, bring a stick of butter to the Two Boots' screening of Last Tango in Paris, they'll hook you up with some free buttered popcorn. God only knows what the managers are planning with that dairy stockpile. [Paper]
• The Double hits the Bowery Ballroom with its "ascendant flutes and gentle guitar lines." Peter, Paul, and Mary open. [flavorpill]
Sunday:
• The third day of the Times' Arts & Leisure Weekend series presents Hank Azaria, Bebe Neuwirth, and Goosebumps writer R. L. Stine, among others, with tickets still available for various talks. That was a nice way of saying, "All the good ones are sold out already." [NYT]

By now, your inbox has probably been visited a dozen or so times by an endlessly forwarded list of "facts" about legendary Walker, Texas Ranger star Chuck Norris ("Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried." etc etc), a litany compiled from the Random Chuck Norris Fact Generator. The LAT (by means of reprinting a Washington Post article from earlier in the week) tries to deconstruct the Norris Mystique, and who better to hold forth on the subject of the man's enduring appeal than the stoic actor's publicist?

• Don't even think of acting like you're cool to check out former New Kid Jordan Knight tonight at B.B. King's with 98 Degrees' Jeff Timmons. If you rat your bangs high enough, maybe Jordan will sign your Lisa Frank pencil holder. [flavorpill]
• Our slutty sister Ana Marie Cox, having finally broken free from the chains of blogging, reads from her new book, Dog Days, at the Astor Place Barnes & Noble, 7 PM. Bring your own martini, because we doubt she'll share hers.
• Makor helps you relive your worst childhood nightmares with its "adult" spelling bee tonight. Take advantage of the one-hour open beer and wine bar beforehand and you should be eliminated and put out of your misery rather quickly. [92Y]

• "Mystic Lake," Katy Grannan's new exhibit, features a dozen new nude and half-nude portraits. In case you're wondering, these things go from Playboy to art as soon as you put your dick back in your pants. [Paper]
• In Brian Parks' play Goner, the president has been assassinated, doctors make funny jokes, and the Secret Service runs around threatening to arrest everyone. One out of three ain't too shabby for accuracy. [flavorpill]
• We don't quite understand the idea behind dorkbot-nyc, but some dude named Mikey installed a $2 RFIF tag in his hand. No, we don't know what that is, either, but it sounds like some sort of electronic chip type thing, and that's circus freak enough for us. [Upcoming]