• Mulitplex 2, opening today at the new Smack Mellon space in DUMBO, is "an intellectually rigorous investigation of video art and the complex dynamics behind the consumption of popular media such as television, cinema, and radio." Someone actually attempting to validate the amount of time we spend cracking Lindsay Lohan jokes? Sign us up. [flavorpill]
• Nothing says Thanksgiving like a schizo staging a bank robbery with a cracked-out puppet. Agree? Check out A Most Particularly Peculiar Bank Heist tonight at the Pioneer Theatre. [MsDivine]
• Famous-by-engagement DJ AM performs tonight at Avalon. Yeah, Nicole Richie might be there, but we're really hoping for a ghostwriter spotting. We assume he/she will be the one alone in the corner slogging back vodka and lamenting the fact that knowing every word in the dictionary still doesn't make you socially apt. Not that we can relate or anything. [Paper]

The question has been showing up here and there recently: What ever happened to Andrew Krucoff?

• NY Press hosts a launch for the new website MyOpenBar.com with — you guessed it — an open bar. Hit up the Delancey for free booze from 9-11 and 2-3. [MyOpenBar]
• Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie fame takes time out of his busy O.C.-approved schedule to appear with Styrofoam and members of American Analog set tonight at the Knitting Factory. [flavorpill]
• Because torturing unassuming straight men wasn't enough, Queer Eye's Carson Kressley has written a book for children. Hear him read from You're Different and That's Super tonight at Borders at Columbus Circle. [Paper]

It seems like we've been sounding the death knell for Amanda Scheer Demme's Taj Mahal of Unrepentant Starfucking, the Roosevelt Hotel's Tropicana Bar, for months now. A Defamer operative reports that Demme's poolside cauldron of Hollywood nightlife evil might finally have bubbled over, flooding the place with a D-list potion so unfashionably potent that none could escape unscathed.

• She won't be on the cover of Time (we think) for another few weeks, but the face of Mother Nature, Bea Arthur herself, does a one-night-only reprisal of her 2002 Broadway show tonight to benefit the Ali Forney Center, which provides housing for LGBT youth. We didn't think Mother Nature cared much for the minorities these days, but then again, gay kids are the reason Golden Girls is still in syndication. [AFC]
• Folk singer Erin McKeown, who takes the stage tonight at Joe's Pub, promises with her latest album that "we will become like birds." Fine, as long as we don't become the ones with that flu. [flavorpill]
• Two designers face-off tonight in the LVHRD Second Annual Master-Disaster Fashion Duel Creative, transforming crap to couture right before your very eyes in an hour's time. Alternatively, you can skip the creative process and hit up the Carolina Herrera sample sale for something you might actually wear. [Paper]

Mr. Mickey Boardman: patron saint of all the shit that goes down south of 14th Street.

Friday:
• The Barbie Project, showing tonight and tomorrow at the Ohio Theatre, presents grown-up reflections on the "Barbie experience" through monologue, song, poetry, dance, and audience participation. A Barbie doll is provided; bring your own Dream House and negative body image. [flavorpill]
• Neil Jordan combines the obvious themes of "transgenderism and the IRA" in Breakfast on Pluto, a film chronicling the coming-of-age of an Irish tranny played by Cillian Murprhy. If you prefer bad Southern accents to Irish ones, Joaquin Pheonix and Reese Witherspoon star as prettier versions of Johnny and June Carter Cash in biopic Walk The Line, opening today. [Paper & TONY]
Saturday:
• Chicks on Speed is in fact the band, rather than the audience, expected at the Knitting Factory tonight with Kevin Blechdom. (Though we wouldn't be surprised by a few spectators with the same sobriquet.) [flavorpill]
• Shift of genre: Bravo Silva is throwing a CD release party at the Syrup Room in Williamsburg. The L train is a-runnin', there'll be a few other bands, and there are lots of other nice logistical and entertainment perks, but here's what you really need to know: FREE BEER from 9-10 and 2-3. [Syrup Room]
Sunday:
• American Analog Set finishes its whirlwind Big City tour (they came all the way from Texas, y'all) with a second show at the Mercury Theater tonight. Put on your "Fuck you, we couldn't get tickets to Animal Collective" best and show them what this town is all about. [ML]

It's Friday, children, meaning it's time for Blue States Lose, where we sort through the galleries of fucked-up hipsters at The Cobrasnake, Last Night's Party, Misshapes and Ambrel so you don't have to. Then we bring you our 10 favorites each Friday. After the jump, Joey Arak's list. Enjoy.

• Slate cultural editor Meghan O'Rourke, Times writers Ginia Bellafante and Daniel Mendelsohn, and a number of other equally-credentialed writers convene tonight at the Galleria illy for "An Evening of Catullus," readings from the works of the celebrated Roman poet. We remember enough high-school Latin to translate: "works of the celebrated Roman poet" means "graphic buttsex in a dead language." (6-8 pm tonight, 382 West Broadway between Spring and Broome Streets).
• Acclaimed African musicians Konono N 1 create Bazombo-inspired trance music using "thumb pianos called likemb , microphones made from old car parts, and pots and pans." Bring your own spatula to S.O.B.'s on Varick Street and see whether you can join in on the fun. [flavorpill]
• Housing Works kicks off its Fashion 4 Action Sample Sale today at its Chelsea thrift shop, featuring over 120 designers. A word to the wise: take that spatula along. 80% off retail always means a rumble. [Upcoming]

• Check out the lost-but-found manuscript of Beethoven's Grosse Fugue, on display at Sotheby's before it's sold in London. Because the only thing that makes you seem more intellectual than caring about a really old piece of paper is caring about a really old piece of paper that's about to bring home a shitload of money across the pond. [Paper]
• More pretension: McSweeney's, the New Yorker for cool kids, teams up with NPR at the Symphony Space tonight, recruiting funny people to read a smattering of short-stories by Miranda Mellis, Pia Z. Ehrhardt and Brian Evenson. If the "I heard on NPR..." construction wasn't getting you laid, you can be sure that the McSweeney's/NPR one-two punch will. [flavorpill]
• The Politicker, Gotham Gazette, and the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy host a roundtable discussion on the role of the media in the 2005 New York City elections, complete with an interpretive dance performance from Brian Ellner.

We're not much ones for the email forwards, but the one we're about to discuss is so new, so damn detailed, that we're inclined to indulge ourselves and reprint the whole thing for your pleasure. Of course, it helps that the subject is Lindsay Lohan.

• Coming to you all the way from Portland, Oregon, dance company BodyVox takes over the Joyce Theater to present Civilization Unplugged, an 80-minute technologically-inspired performance that includes "an interactive dance driven by cell phone calls from the audience." Finally, a chance to show off that My Humps ringtone. [flavorpill]
• Dress like your mom for cheap: striped shirts, boat shoes, and navy-everything will be flying off the racks (we re sure) at the Nautica Sample Sale. [Paper]
• The New School gets comprehensive with a reading by the 2005 National Book Award finalists — including the kiddie authors — and a panel entitled Porn Goes Mainstream, all in one night. We ll let you decide whether to pay $10 to hear Joan Didion talk about her really, really bad weekend or to listen to maybe-kind-of-famous people talk about porn for free. It s pretty damn clear where we ll be. [New School x2]

Tricia Romano, bless her little heart, uses her entire column this week to detail a fantastically faggy rivalry: the kids behind hipster-inferno party MisShapes vs. older, equally faggy posse The Trinity. The Trinity (who counts Heatherette designer Richie Rich and increditranny Amanda Lepore as on their side), it seems, doesn't like the MisShapes, "just because." This results in prank phone calls, snide remarks made at the podium during Paper's Nightlife Awards, and nasty note-passing during fifth period.

• We're not quite sure how Cat Power and Blind Boys of Alabama ended up on the same bill for tonight's kickoff of the Music Downtown concert series, but all the free tickets have already been given away. Still, Chan Marshall obsessives take heart: you can queue up on the standby line at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center before the show starts. [flavorpill]
• The good folks at the Mnemosyne Foundation put on a lecture titled Defragging The Da Vinci Code: Will the Real Leonardo Please Raise Your Hand? at Rockefeller University tonight. Informative? Probably. Timely? About two years ago. [Upcoming]
• Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon and Guggenheim fellow Kevin Young read at the 92nd Street Y tonight. Alas, they'll need more than literary accolades to woo us from the Rogan sample sale on Franklin Street. [Upcoming & Paper]

Our invitation must've been lost in the mail, but thanks to the generosity of our readers, we now know the not-so-secret location of Tara Reid's wrap party for her 20s. Given the guest of honor's legendary contributions to the alcoholic arts, the event's planners were forced to tap the deepest recesses of their creative faculties to come up with new twists on the typical Hollywood say-goodbye-to-your-earning-years bacchanalia. Their proudest creation is a custom-built, Swarovski crystal-encrusted dunk tank designed to hold over 500 gallons of top-shelf vodka. Once all the guests have arrived, Reid will take her place inside the tank, and parytgoers will hurl dodgeballs at a stop sign-sized target, plunging the giggling birthday girl into the 80 proof spirits below over and over again. After a few dunk-cycles, limes may be added for taste.

Friday:
• The Brazilian Girls and Beans headline Brooklyn Shuffle tonight at Southpaw, a two-night showcase for artists who capture the open-mindedness and funky diversity that Brooklyn has grown to embrace. Oh, the euphemisms people come up with for hipster trash. [flavorpill]
• Jesus is Magic, the new film from potty-mouthed ing nue Sarah Silverman, opens today. Bemused Jewish boys everywhere scratch their heads at how unfunny fatman Jimmy Kimmel beat them to the punch. [AOL]
Saturday:
• Enjoy unlimited sampling of over 300 of the finest craft beers in the world at Chelsea Piers Brewtopia: World Beer Festival. Make sure you don t overdo it on the college nostalgia, Van Wilder: Security will be on hand to make certain that you drink responsibly. [Brewtopia]
• Tonight s Art Brut show at Tribeca Grand Hotel is different from the previous Art Brut shows at various other New York City locales in one important way: it s free if you RSVP. [flavorpill]
Sunday:
• The 3rd Annual New York Arab-American Comedy Festival kicks off tonight, conveniently packing hordes of ethnic-looking people into small venues around the city. And the Department of Homeland Security s job just got a hell of a lot easier. [Arab Comedy]

It's time for the latest installment of Blue States Lose, where we sort through the galleries of fucked-up hipsters at The Cobrasnake, Last Night's Party, Misshapes and Ambrel (NEW!) so you don't have to. Then we bring you our 10 favorites each Friday. Enjoy.

• Tonight's Art Brut show at Mercury Lounge is sold out, but head on over to the Dark Room for the official "Tarts of Pleasure" afterparty. No less than venerable nightlife rag the New York Times has noted that the party is "chock full of high-energy odes to pretension" — Grey Lady slang for conspicuously coked-up girls in leggings! [Upcoming, WUNY]
• The Steven Kasher Gallery plays host to House of Campari's Passionate Image: The Body in Art and Advertising, which examines how art and advertising have become increasingly intertwined in recent years. Allow us our highbrow explanation: Classy boobies sell. [Paper]
• Tonight at Northsix in Brooklyn, celebrate the release of Homecoming 2004, a documentary on streetfighting poultry hybrids Chengwin and Chuck. We're as clueless as you. [flavorpill]

30-year-old Darcy Smith (left) of South Orange is hot. So hot, in fact, that she can't even knock back a $15 cosmo without being constantly hit on by the suave gentlemen of New York nightlife. Weary of being asked to dance and offered drink after tiresome drink, Smith put a posting on Craigslist looking for a security guard to accompany her and her friends during their nights out on the town. Enter 315-pound Brendan Reed, one of three bodyguards Smith hired to keep the lady-killers at bay. Now, thanks to her personal security detail, Smith can pretend she's J-Lo and enjoy a night out with her girlfriends at Spirit.

• Spencer Winde s documentary Straight Acting, which screens tonight as part of the New York LGBT Film Festival, focuses on the lives of gay men who compete in such macho athletic endeavors as hockey, rugby, and rodeo. We can only assume the latter is of the bareback variety. [Paper]
• LA-based writer Trinie Dalton, says Flavorpill, "pens beautifully strange stories about a psychedelic California that s rarely seen in the light of day." Translation: she s a freak. Check her out at the Court Street Barnes and Noble in Brooklyn tonight at 7pm. [flavorpill]
• Writer Paul Collins newest work, The Trouble with Tom, chronicles the author s global travels to piece together the body of Thomas Paine, the Founding Fathers' very own Jon Stewart. The Daily Show s Tim Carvell and writers JM Tyree and David Rees help Collins unleash the "Paindemic" (Rees's pun, not ours, though we wish we came up with it) at Housing Works Caf at 7:00pm. [Upcoming]