• We got it wrong last time, but Nellie McKay, word wizard and prodigious wonder, actually IS performing tonight at Makor. For serious this time. [flavorpill]
• Oprah's latest monster, James Frey, milks it to the very last damn drop by reading at the Union Square Barnes & Noble tonight at 7. In another world, where people win Pulitzers and know who Virginia Woolf is, Edward Albee discusses his literary influences at The Center, courtesy of the Gray Lady. [NYT]
• Earnest Sewn sells its jeans at an almost affordable price, now through December 9. Make yourself into a beast of trend-denim every night until 7 PM. [Paper]

Finally some news this weekend on former Women's Wear Daily reporter Peter Braunstein, who's been on the run since allegedly sexually assaulting a former co-worker on Halloween. According the several eyewitness accounts, Braunstein fled to Cleveland a few days after the incident, where he posed as a location scout of Nip/Tuck and told others he was a retired Los Angeles cop. Under the aliases Peter Bronson, Peter Brown, and Peter Grant, P-Bra's Cleveland adventure included stays at cheap hotels, smoking pot, blowing rails, and hitting the strip clubs. So unfair how the bad guys have all the fun.

Sightings are sent in by loyal, drug-abusing readers. Send yours to tips@gawker.com.

Friday:
• In the blue-state version of Desperate Housewives, Felicity Huffman plays a transsexual who discovers the existence of her street-hustler son. Catch her female-turned-male-turned-female stint in Transamerica, opening today. [TONY]
• Flavorpill takes over the Guggenheim tonight for its First Fridays series, featuring a live set by Funkst rung, a Munich-based techno duo. If they came all the way from Germany, surely you can make it all the way uptown. [flavorpill]
Saturday:
• DJ Heather's performance at Sullivan Room tonight differs from a bunch of other DJs performing at places tonight in that the proceeds benefit NextAid, in conjunction with World AIDS Day. Do the right thing, 'cause you probably didn't do so yesterday. [flavorpill]
• Garrison Keilor and Co. take over the Town Hall Theater for this month's broadcast of a Prairie Home Companion, which means you have four chances to watch sound effects be made. See (hear?) the triangle in all its glory tonight at 5:45. [Upcoming]
Sunday:
• Martha Stewart speaks at the 92nd St Y tonight as a part of BusinessWeek's Captains of Industry series. We assume the industry in question is dragging down television networks with horrific spin-offs. [Upcoming]

This news alert is just in from 7Online, WABC's website:

Yesterday was the fiftieth anniversary of Rosa Parks's famous civil disobedience, and, in an a Elijah-like tribute, the MTA joined with transit systems across the country to ask passengers to leave the seat immediately behind the driver empty in Parks's honor. The Times reports today that the vast majority of MTA riders, even those on packed rush-hour buses, were happy to comply.

Too young and not quite jaded enough to handle the velvet ropes at Marquee and Bungalow 8? Even better, are you under 18 or prefer to stalk those under 18? If so, Crush might be the perfect nightclub for you.

• "Karma has worked overtime for this spacey, neo-psych trio," says flavorpill of The Secret Machines, who headline at the Mercy Corps benefit for vicitms of the Gulf Coast disaster. Well, it sure as hell hasn't for the people down South, so put your hipstering to good use and haul ass to Webster Hall. [flavorpill]
• Over at the Museum of Sex, Tristan Taormino, Jon Hart and Rachel Kramer Bussel take part in reading and panel entitled "Everything You Know About Sex is Wrong." Learn about holes four, five, and six tonight at 8. [Paper]
• Still high on whatever it was that made her design for H&M, Stella McCartney sells her own high-cost designs for cheap(er) today from 11-7. [WUNYC]

After three annoyingly creepy Craigslist postings on the whereabouts of sexual assault suspect and former Women's Wear Daily reporter Peter Braunstein (the author of which made a shadowy appearance on Fox News), we find the following to be nothing short of fantastic:

It's almost enough to make you finally pack up and move to Brooklyn:

Cindy Sheehan, spotted by a spy on the 6 train today. We support the lady, of course. But we don't really see how she expects to finally get the president's attention when she's on the IRT.

•Lady Sovereign, the 5'1" rap sensation, takes her Napoleon complex out on the masses at the Knitting Factory tonight. Get there early; we doubt you can see her from the back of the room. [flavorpill]
• The Boys of Baraka, a documentary showing through Dec. 13 at Film Forum, follows twenty boys from inner-city Baltimore to an experimental boarding school in Kenya. Social commentary aside, the practical jokes possible when teenagers meet rhinoceri makes this film quite promising. As a bonus, tonight's screening features a Q&A with filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady. [Paper]
• The Brian Setzer Orchestra, Carrie Underwood, and Regis Philbin all in one place? Yes, it's true. So if the hoi polloi aren't your style, allow us to warn you away from Rockefeller Center tonight: the tree gets lit at 7, and unless you do, too, it won't be pretty. [Upcoming]

Sightings are sent in by readers JUST LIKE YOU; Send yours to tips@gawker.com.

Lately Freddy Ferrer has been doing his bit to remind us that he's one of the biggest losers you've ever seen. (The it-was-all-the-media's-fault explanation for his mayoral loss, promulgated Monday, was a nice bit of loserdom, ignoring, as it did, the multimillions by which he was outspent, the popularity and competence of his incumbent opponent, and his own general hackiness.) But it turns out today that, Freddy's best efforts to the contrary notwithstanding, the mustachioed Democrat was not, in fact, the biggest Democratic loser in any New York City mayoral election ever.

It's the new STAB BABY.

• Tonight's Jonathan Ames Show at Mo Pitkin's — the last of the 2005 — will feature Reverend Jen, the girl who wears elf ears, Drag King Murray Hill, a mentalist named Eric Walton, Miss Saturn (a girl who uses hula-hoops while stripping), and Mangina and his love Valmonte Sprout. A joke would be superfluous; just go see the show. [JA]
• Music without words is the name of the game tonight, as electronic artists Shark Attack, DJ Clever, Giles Dickerson, and Puzzled perform at Stay, while Pier Bucci and Damian Lazarus take over Cielo. Can't decide? The show at Stay may or may not be free. If that helps. [flavorpill x2]
• Billy Joel plans to spend the majority of his time at the 92nd Street Y tonight talking. All the talking in the world still couldn't explain why he keeps slamming into the poor trees of the Hamptons, but maybe he'll try. [Paper]

Another day, and yet another Craigslist post ruminating on the state of suspected fake fireman and former Women's Wear Daily staffer Peter Braunstein, who has inexplicably been on the loose since Halloween. As before, the author of this item seems suspiciously insightful and inanely detailed — so much so that, of course, we have to wonder if the writer might be uncomfortably close to Braunstein himself. To add to the shudder factor, the author has been emailing Gawker to alert us to his or her new works, presumably so that we draw attention to the screeds by posting them.

• If you can score yourself a sold-out ticket, head on over to the Mercury Lounge to check out British trio The Cribs, who join the pantheon of three-minute-indie-power-rock-the-bands. [flavorpill]
• Little to no self-respect required at Madison Square Garden tonight as Bon Jovi, New Jersey's second most illustrious 80s rocker, hits the stage for the first of two concerts. Lo, the power of Rogaine and delusion. [MSG]
• "True Tales of the Bronx Zoo" promises to deliver, well, that, tonight during a panel of Zoo employees moderated by the Daily Show's Samantha Bee. We're hoping for an elephant gangbang anecdote, but really, any sort of grade-C beastiality reference will suffice. [Paper]

The Post reports on the brutal murder of 21-year-old Catherine Woods, an attractive, "aspiring Broadway dancer" whose death is clearly solid cover material.

We had our own bedbug infestation about two years ago. Intern Alexis, famously, faced hers around the same time. So, while we're always glad to hear other New Yorkers being warned of the problem, we can't help wondering what made the Times decide yesterday was the right time for an article headlined, "Just Try to Sleep Tight. The Bedbugs Are Back."