From: "Jeff Stark" <jstark@nonsensenyc.com>
Subject: nonsensenyc: 3.26 to 4.1
Date: March 26th 2010

Friday, March 26
* Annie’s Shakespeare Shakedown: Romeo and Juliet, Manhattan * Poor Traits, Brooklyn
* HiChristina Soap Opera: The Audience Is the Camera, Manhattan * Rubulad Presents: The Bunny Hop, Brooklyn * Closing party for Philadelphia's Works From the Nettle Fizz, Williamsburg * Critical Mass, Manhattan
* Fairyland Show, Brooklyn

Saturday, March 27
* Swan Night at the Velveteen Rainbow, Brooklyn * Hey, I'm Walkin' Here! Brooklyn
* Amanda Browder’s Future Phenomena, Brooklyn * Saturday Ciphers, Brooklyn
* The Sky Box Aerial Open Mike, Brooklyn

Sunday, March 28
* Raya Brass Band with Portland's Underscore Orkestra, Brooklyn * The Secret City: The Body, Manhattan
* The [Robert Moses] Walk Project, Brooklyn * Neutral Art, Manhattan
* Recess 2.0, Brooklyn
* NYC Food Crawl Presents: The March Brownie Crawl, Manhattan * Bindlestiff Cavalcade of Youth, Brooklyn

Monday, March 29
* Jenny Rocha and Her Painted Ladies, Williamsburg

Tuesday, March 30
* Book Club Burlesque: Chic Love, Manhattan * Freshkills Park Talks, Brooklyn

Wednesday, March 30
* Jobless: The Weekly Anti-Networking Cocktail Party, Manhattan * Kings County Cinema Society Presents the King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, Brooklyn

Thursday, April 1
* New York City's 25th Annual April Fools' Day Parade, Manhattan

Wishlist
* Tiny Offerings

Spectre
* SYNCO

Learning
* Sewers

Help
* Art party and benefit for Ray Cross

NOTE: For some navigation help, or an explanation for what this is all about, scroll all the way down to NONSENSE. You'll find snarky editorial comments and little bits of praise littered throughout this list. These nuggets are marked with all caps, like this: NOTE. Also, we make a lot of mistakes, especially with dates; you should always double check our work. And you can donate to this project at nonsensenyc.com/special.

XXXXX COVER ART XXXXX

Red buds along the highway.

XXXXX FRIDAY, MARCH 26 XXXXX

Annie’s Shakespeare Shakedown: Romeo and Juliet

What better way to kick start your weekend than by getting drunk to death and romance? Annie's Shakespeare Shakedown presents the best scenes from Romeo and Juliet in a bar party setting with live music, burlesque dancer, drinks, dancing, and theatrics. Enter Juliet’s Coming Out Party in the process of being crashed by Romeo and his buddies. For the rest of the evening, you talk, dance, and flirt with the characters of the classic love story as it unfolds around you. The action happens simultaneously throughout the nooks of China One, so the audience is immersed from start to finish. See Shakespeare in a way you've never experienced it before. With so much going on, you’re going to want to experience this loud and sexy evening more than once.

China 1 Lounge
50 Avenue B, between 3rd and 4th streets, Manhattan 8-10p; $10 door
Continues SATURDAY
shakespeareshakedown.com

***** Also on FRIDAY *****

Poor Traits

Featuring work by: Mat Brinkman, MV Carbon, Max Eisenberg, CF, Daniel Lopatin, John Olson, and Nate Young.

Louis V. E.S.P. is pleased to announce an exhibition of works by seven artists who are known primarily for their music. Poor Traits presents a closer look at the visual work of these musicians, all of whom have been loosely associated with the American "noise" movement. This term in itself holds little descriptive power so it seems necessary to delve deeper into the images that surround the genre. The works in this show have found connections in their sense of playfulness, theatricality, narrative disposition, and/or deadpan sensibilities.

Mat Brinkman, a founding member of Fort Thunder artist space, has played in Mindflayer and Forcefield and is known in the indie comic community for his elaborate Multi-Force comic strip. Brooklyn based MV Carbon is a painter and composer who has collaborated with many artists including John Wiese, Tony Conrad and Aki Onda. She is one half of the band Metelux.Max Eisenberg co-runs the performance venue The Bank in Baltimore and has performed with Nautical Almanac, Little Howlin’ Wolf, Rubbed Raw Dance Squad and in his solo rap outfit DJ Dog Dick. CF is active in the art, music and comic book worlds. He has performed music under the name Kites and more recently Mark Lord. He is the writer and draftsman of the graphic novel series Powr Mastrs. Daniel Lopatin is a member of Infinity Window and Oneohtrix Point Never. He runs the cd-r label Upstairs and maintains the culture blog Skull Theft. John Olson and Nate Young are members of the epic Michigan based Wolf Eyes. Olson is hea d of American Tapes label and is also a member of Dead Machines, and Graveyards. Nate Young’s AAlabel produces records, tapes, shirts, and treated or converted analogue televisions and radios. His other musical projects include Jean Street, Demons, and Regression.

Louis V. E.S.P.
140 Jackson Street, No. 4D, Brooklyn
7-11p; $?
infolouisvesp.com

***** Also on FRIDAY *****

HiChristina Soap Opera: The Audience Is the Camera

With Cookie Dough and Glitter Mustache. Official grand opening of the new Hichristina homebase. Tonight HiChristina is the set of a live and evolving three-act soap opera. All your grandmother's favorite Soap Opera characters are there. The handsome doctor, the heiress, the attractive new character, the con man, the fly-about-town, and they're from Dallas, from helicopter-high sky scrapers, from the hospital. These days of our lives have never been so decorated in glitter. Not only can you jump into a choose-your-own-role tonight in this ready-to-wear soap opera, but you can also be the camera. That's right, the audience is the camera: hold hands, get tied together with string or wrapped in plastic and jump into Close Up, Dolly Shot, Establishing Shot, B Roll, and squirm on the ever-popular Cutting Room Floor, where we cut cookies out of dough, toss globs at the man in plastic and hum the soap opera theme song! Christina and Fritz along with volunteers from the audience star in this epic and action-packed live telenovella. Sport your very own sparkling mustache courtesy of the professional glitter technicians Second Skin. Oh, and I almost forgot ... we're inaugurating a new space tonight; HiChristina has moved to Manhattan.

163 Eldridge Street, Manhattan
9p; $10 with glitter, $20 without, RSVP for invitation fritzandchristinagmail.com

***** Also on FRIDAY *****

Rubulad Presents: The Bunny Hop

Bands: The Drunkard’s Wife: featuring Lili’s Dance of the Seven Veils, Mamarazzi, the Daisy Spurs, and LoveStruck. With your DJ and soundman Cody. DJs: $mall ¢hange, Repoman, Catalyst, and Dirty Fingers.

In the Cabaret Room: Jessica Delfino, the Jared Whitham Show, Nathan Whipple, and DJ and soundman Greything.

Plus: the False Rabbit, Modern Dance Awareness Society, Hot F***in’ Tamales, Dreams and Aspirations Vending Machine by Yung, Norm Francoeur’s Light Circus Extraordinaire, and Vittles by Vicious Delicious. Dress: Funny Bunnies.

You can help us continue to have a Rubulad in this space by being quiet coming and going, staying inside the space during the event and not pissing all over the sidewalk as soon as you get around the corner -- which, incidentally, does attract the police and they will write you a summons.

Rubulad Home Base
338 Flushing Avenue, between Classon and Taaffee, Brooklyn B62 bus to Flushing Avenue, or G train to Classon station 10p doors, 11p show; $10 in bunny drag, before 11, or way late, $15 otherwise

***** Also on FRIDAY *****

Closing party for Philadelphia's Works From the Nettle Fizz

Dance party. With Bobo, DJ Cool Places Sound Systems, LA Red, Howard Kleger, and Bree Zucker.

Secret Project Robot Art Space
210 Kent Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn 9p; $?

***** Also on FRIDAY *****

Critical Mass: Manhattan

Critical Mass is a spontaneous celebration of what our streets could look like. this fun group ride encourages new cyclists and creates safer streets and new green infrastructure. Strap some music to your bike and make sure to bring appropriate lights and bells.

Union Square, North Side
Broadway and 17th Street, Manhattan
7p; $free
critical-mass.org/

***** Also on FRIDAY *****

Fairyland Show

You are cordially invited to join us for a very special night of performance, music, dancing, drinks, projections, snacks, and all the wonderful things we do and bee when we're here together.

We will be offering a sneak preview of some of our performance material from recent and future productions. With Dharma, Midnight Revelries (Dream Theater), and Fairytale Experiment. With the Invisible Chef and DJ Naked rocking the wheels of steel on the breaks.

This is friends and fairy family as usual, however we shall be gratefully accepting donations for drinks and the live performance. All donations will become seed money for the Magical Real's first full length production, "Alice in the Underground," our contemporary urban reinvention of Lewis Carroll's famous fairytale. More about that coming soon.

C. Spot aka Fairyland aka Theater of the Magical Real Gates 10 Evans Street, Harrison Alley, Corner of Hudson and Water Street, Brooklyn 10:30p; $donation

XXXXX SATURDAY, MARCH 27 XXXXX

Swan Night at the Velveteen Rainbow

A very special benefit for Ruby Streak Trapeze and Natalie Agee.

With Mini Gallery Opening with art by Jocelyn Davis, Variety Show with trapeze, performance, music and spoken word by LAVA (Sarah East Johnson/Molly Chanoff), Rosita Stoned, Zil Goldstein, Jeep Ries, Samuael Topiary, Adrienne Anemone, Gretchen Hildebran, Lea Bender, Julia Steele Allen and more. And a potluck reception (food and drink contributions much appreciated). For an extra $5 you can get a haircut with Mr. Bruce or a Tarot reading with Topiary.

Ruby Streak Trapeze was founded by Natalie Agee, an incredible teacher, aerialist, dancer, artist, and community leader. Natalie teaches workshops in static trapeze, corde lisse, Chinese hoop diving, acrobatics, handstands, dance, composition, pilates-based conditioning, and injury recovery/prevention. She is also a performer of most everything. Natalie is the director of Ruby Streak Trapeze Studio, a community of students and artists who work together to create a positive environment in which diverse and developing voices are celebrated and empowered.

The past year has been difficult for many of us. We’ve had to cut back on expenses such as trapeze classes and attending performance events to survive. It has been an especially difficult year for freelance artists and teachers who depend on students and events to make a living. In the fall of 2008 Natalie's studio, Ruby Streak Trapeze was displaced from its home of many years. After seven months of searching for a new space, she finally signed on for a studio in Sunset Park. The ceilings were not as high as she hoped, but she followed her heart and pushed forward with her vision to create a new space where students and artists can practice and perform. The resources required to create this space were infinite. There was construction, contracts, materials, rigging, insurance, engineers -- and then there was a recession. Despite all odds, Natalie’s new space, the Velveteen Rainbow, created collaboratively with sound artist Aimee Norwich, opened it’s doors in the summer o f 2009. Please help us celebrate and support the wonderful determination of Ruby Streak Studio/Natalie Agee.

Velveteen Rainbow Studio
220 36th Street, A503, between 2nd and 3rd avenues, Brooklyn N, D, R, M trains to 36th Street station 7-10p; $10-20 sliding scale
natalieagee.com

***** Also on SATURDAY *****

Hey, I'm Walkin' Here!

A series of exploratory perambulations through the five boroughs. Or, less pretentiously: Get off your butt and come walk around the city with us.

Matt's leaving town on a nine-month walk from Rockaway Beach, NY to Rockaway Beach, OR. Come join him for the first leg of his trek: 18 miles from Rockaway Beach to the Brooklyn Bridge.

Rockaway Beach boardwalk at Beach 91st Street, Queens 10a for the walk, 9a for a pre-walk dip in the Atlantic; $free matt.burnsomedustgmail.com
burnsomedust.com

***** Also on SATURDAY *****

From Brooklyn Based:

Amanda Browder’s Future Phenomena

The North Brooklyn Public Art Coalition (NbPac) is proud to present Amanda Browder’s Future Phenomena. This large-scale, fabric public art sculpture will be temporarily affixed to the façade of an apartment building in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where its psychedelic spectacle of bright colors and flowing shapes will be a representation of a group effort in a local community.

Greenpoint and Williamsburg are prime examples of the transformative effects of mass consumption and gentrification, with its ever more degraded earth and mass of abandoned construction sites. With these ill-effects come renewed community activism -- embodied by North Brooklyn’s growing efforts to reuse, recycle, and to renew its neighborhoods. Greenpoint and Williamsburg are century-long experiments in the sustainability of urban life. Future Phenomena will not only be a fantastic work to behold, but its focus on recycled materials, public space, and community volunteerism will draw attention to local concerns such as gentrification, pollution, and urban migration.

As part of the conceptual nature of the piece, Browder and NbPac will host three Community Sewing Days and enlist the public’s participation in the creation of the immense, sewn work (see Community Sewing Days). Volunteers will play an integral role in making Future Phenomena a reality by sewing the chevron shape, donating recycled materials, and transforming Browder’s project into a communal gesture. Through the artist’s and the community’s energy, discarded objects and materials will be transformed into an awe-inspiring work of abstract art.

To help bring Future Phenomena to life, NbPac is hosting three Community Sewing Days in Greenpoint and Bushwick. We are asking for community participation in donating fabrics and supplies and cutting and sewing the fabric.

St. Cecilia’s Convent (with Round Robin) 21 Monitor Street, Greenpoint, Brooklyn Noon-4p; $free

***** Also on SATURDAY *****

Housing is a Human Right and MoCADA present:

Saturday Ciphers

Featuring performances by Toni Blackman, SpiritChild, and more. This will mark the final Saturday of MoCADA’s showcase of Housing is a Human Right as part of the critically acclaimed exhibit The Gentrification of Brooklyn: The Pink Elephant Speaks. We’re bringing it home with Stories from Housing is a Human Right and performances by Toni Blackman, SpiritChild, Kilusan Bautista, Charan P, and more.

Adriala Gallery
57 Putnam Avenue, corner of Irving Place, Brooklyn C train to Clinton-Washington station
4-6p; $free
housingisahumanright.org

***** Also on SATURDAY *****

The Sky Box Aerial Open Mike

A show of precision, daring and brawn. One lady will dance till her clothes are all gone. Another will spin at high speeds on a cord. There's even a fiddle, played upside down, and MC Kae Burke sure don't mess around: It's death defying and always high flying. Please don't be late and bring your own wine.

House of Yes
342 Maujer Street, at Morgan Avenue, Brooklyn L train to Grand Street Station
8p doors, 9p show; $10
houseofyes.org

XXXXX SUNDAY, MARCH 28 XXXXX

Raya Brass Band with Portland's Underscore Orkestra

Plus Frank London's and Jessica Lurie's Freethiopiques, Sarah "Snaps" Alden and Butt Kapinski, and DJ Dusty Walker.

This is gonna be a sweet night of dancing and music making with a wide variety of musical styles in one of Brooklyn's nicest dives. Yep, the Underscore Orkestra is in town, Frank and Jessica and company are bringing their groovin Ethiopian sounds to Don Pedros, Snaps and Butt will be busting yer gut, and of course we'll play our Raya Brass Band hits including a few new originals by Greg, Ben, and Don.

Don Pedro Bar
90 Manhattan Avenue, between Boerum and McKibben, Williamsburg, Brooklyn 8p-1a; $10-15 sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of funds bit.ly/bjhcvr

***** Also on SUNDAY *****

The Secret City: The Body

The Secret City is a community of artists and other conscious, creative people. We gather to celebrate, cogitate, ruminate and meditate on the nature of art-making and the creative spirit.

Part cabaret, part art-church, part salon, each service has a different theme and features live performance, presentation and original work.

Less than a week until spring -- what a thrill! It won't be long until folks will be dropping the outer wear and shedding the dark, heavy skins we've adopted for winter. Before you know it, there'll be dancing in the streets.

Come celebrate the glorious feeling of rebirth at the Secret City. Join us for amazing guest artists, live music, juicy visuals, tasty flavors, funny stories, stimulating conversation, joyful camaraderie and live human bodies. All this can be found every month at the Secret City. And remember, free childcare.

Theatrelab
137 West 14th Street, between 6th and 7th avenues, Manhattan 11:30a; $10 suggested donation

***** Also on SUNDAY *****

The [Robert Moses] Walk Project

The [Robert Moses] Walk Project is a yearlong exploration of the effect Robert Moses had on the city and state of New York. Through the act of walking, small and large groups are exploring the ramifications of Robert Moses’ reconstruction of the city landscape. In January, we did a dozen walks to different sites shaped by Moses. On some walks we took pictures, on other walks we collected objects, on every walk we had conversations. These pictures, items, and conversations have turned into a series of things to look at and play with that we think you’ll enjoy -- who doesn’t like hot cocoa and a ball pit?

This series of installations, taking place in Wallabout Studios, by the Brooklyn Navy Yard, is a way to get conversation started about the things we saw and experienced as we explored the many different major public works helmed by Moses.

Walks will continue throughout the year, exploring different aspects of Moses’ career. Each month’s walks will culminate in a collaborative reaction, using different mediums to explore these ideas.

We’d love to see you at the many more walks in the future, but for now join the conversation at our Walk.

16 Waverly Avenue, No. 4-3, Brooklyn
7-10p; $free
559 978 6183

***** Also on SUNDAY *****

Neutral Art

How can visual art help motivate a community towards sustainable growth? On Sunday, March 28th from 5pm until 8pm we will have four talented artists displaying their work in a massive private loft space with the intention of finding out. Come to build community and talk to artists and activists committed to carbon neutrality and check out the work of four up-and-coming artists from the New York area. Displaying: Seung Wha Kim, Jeri Chevalier, Anders Knutsson, David Kassman. Booze and organic snacks available while it lasts.

137 Duane Street No. 3A, entrance around the corner at 66 Thomas, Manhattan 5-8p; $free

***** Also on SUNDAY *****

Recess 2.0

I've been reading nonsenseNYC ssince I moved to New York last summer and have met a lot of my friends through these events and am at the point now where it puts a smile on my face to see my friends' parties, art shows, music performaances, etc on Nonsense. I have an idea for a group and I need Nonsense's help making it happen.

Here is the blurb: Remember the days when you skipped rope and chased other kids around the playground and pretended you were pirates? Remember swing sets and chalk? Recess 2.0 is all about reclaiming that childhood joy. Come join us every other Sunday for playground shenanigans. Meet other strangers traversing the monkeybars. Remember how to be 8 again. Life was good back then. For our first get-together, bring your red rubber balls, jumpropes, hula hoops, sidewalk chalk, anything you have. And be prepared to play like it was 1993.

Playground at Marcy and Metropolitan, Brooklyn 3p; $free

***** Also on SUNDAY *****

NYC Food Crawl Presents: The March Brownie Crawl

Named for its rich brown coloring, the classic brownie consists of just a few ingredients: butter, sugar, chocolate, eggs, and flour. Originally created around the turn of the 20th century, this purist chocolate dessert has given way to many decadent variations over the years, ranging in texture from fudgy, to cakelike, to chewy, and with an ever-growing list of added ingredients such as nuts, molasses, mint, peanut butter, cream cheese, and even chili peppers!

Please join NYC Food Crawl for the March Brownie Crawl on Sunday, March 28. We will meet at 3pm sharp at the north corner of Jackson Square and spend a couple hours sampling different types of brownies across Chelsea.

Brownie route, map, and team assignments will be provided at starting point, so please show up on time! Go at your own pace, pay as you go. Come hungry, leave happy, and may the best brownie win!

Meet at northern corner of Jackson Square Greenwich Avenue and 8th Avenue, Manhattan 3p; $free
No RSVP necessary
bit.ly/Hj6K8
nycfoodcrawl.blogspot.com

***** Also on SUNDAY *****

Coney Island USA, Bindlestiff Family Variety Arts, Inc., and Playful Productions present:

Bindlestiff Cavalcade of Youth

A special showcase for young variety performers, ranging from amateurs to world-class professionals. Juvenile jugglers, diminutive dancers, adolescent acrobats and a host of other moppets and mummers present a full show of vernal vaudeville. Acts range from debuting amateurs to world-class champion performers -- all under the age of 21.

In its seventh year, the Cavalcade continues to feature an amazing array of young talent. You may see juvenile unicyclists, tap dancers, magicians, clowns, and contortionists sharing the stage with Broadway-bound singers and classically trained musicians.

Although this show features all children performers, it is not your average school recital. Appropriate for all audiences, this show is definitely not just for kids.

Sideshows by the Seashore
1208 Surf Avenue, Brooklyn
4p; $10 youth, $15 adults
brownpapertickets.com/event/94327
bindlestiff.org

XXXXX MONDAY, MARCH 29 XXXXX

Jenny Rocha and Her Painted Ladies

Jenny Rocha and Her Painted Ladies join forces with songster Broadway Brassy to bring you a night of dance, music and comedy with a twist of burlesque. Acclaimed as "fly girls for thinking people," [NOTE: by us ...] the quintet mixes tightly crafted choreography with physical comedy and raucous theatricality. Plus Broadway Brassy, the curvaceous songster mixing styles of cabaret, blues, jazz, and her bawdy personality to achieve new levels of musical theatre performance.

Public Assembly's Front Room
70 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn 8:30p; $12
publicassemblynyc.com
jennyrocha.com

XXXXX TUESDAY, MARCH 30 XXXXX

Book Club Burlesque: Chic Love

Once again, the Parkside Lounge is playing host to the Inbred Hybrid Collective and their wickedly smart pairing of high-brow literature and low-brow eroticism, the Book Club Burlesque: Chic Love.

The Book Club Burlesque combines provocative novels and stage performance to create a show where one simultaneously feels both sexy and smitten. Recreating scenes culled from novels, essays, and poetry, the Inbred Hybrid Collective adds their own sexy twist and a generous heaping of burlesque to keep the audience glued to their seats, and anxiously sipping their drinks.

Last time Inbred Hybrid brought their Book Club Burlesque show to the Parkside (featured in New Yorker magazine), we witnessed the true naughty nature of Edward Gorey’s the Curious Sofa. The performers, donning librarian-by-day/stripper-by-night attire, pulled scenes from Sofa and gave the audience a seductive retelling certainly not for children. Combining the racy show with the arousing nature of the Parkside’s very own Raspberry-infused Vodka Gimlet, and the evening quickly turned intelligently steamy.

This time around, Inbred Hybrid will be using Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love as their source of X-rated material. Dunn’s bizarre tale of genetically engineered freaks and their traveling carnival will undoubtedly provide the Inbred folks with enough fodder to have the whole room sweating with intrigue and titillation.

For the sake of literature, give in to your sexy side and come check out the Book Club Burlesque: Chic Love show at the Parkside Lounge. You won’t be disappointed, and you’ll leave a little more versed in the art of erotic-literature-theater, whatever that may be.

Parkside Lounge
317 E. Houston Street, Manhattan
8p; $?
212 673 6270
ParksideFungmail.com

***** Also on TUESDAY *****

Freshkills Park Talks

The Freshkills Park team is hosting an upcoming event that I think would be of-interest to subscribers and readers of Nonsense NYC. This talk features photographer Nathan Kensinger, who will walk us through his photos of New York’s Post-industrial Waterfront, sharing stories and experiences along the way. The talk will be co-hosted by MEx (the Metropolitan Exchange.

The Freshkills Park Talks lecture series continues this month with a talk and slideshow by Nathan Kensinger, a photographer and filmmaker whose work focuses on the abandoned and industrial edges of New York City. Nathan will be sharing stories of sites along the Gowanus Canal, inside the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and at Fresh Kills, among others, while walking us through his beautiful images. Nathan's photos have been featured in the New York Times, the New York Post, New York Magazine, The Architect's Newspaper, and other outlets and are currently on display as part of an exhibit titled the Gentrification of Brooklyn at Brooklyn's Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts.

The talk will be co-hosted by the Metropolitan Exchange, an architecture, urban planning and research cooperative in downtown Brooklyn.

The Metropolitan Exchange
33 Flatbush Avenue, sixth floor, Brooklyn 6:30p; $?
212 788 8277
freshkillsparkparks.nyc.gov

XXXXX WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31 XXXXX

Jobless: The Weekly Anti-Networking Cocktail Party

No job to do today? Wondering what all your other unemployed friends are doing today besides going to a 9 to 5 job? Well, look no further. This afternoon, join your fellow unemployed (yay freedom!), self-employed (make-your-own schedule) and alterna-business (we won't ask) associates for a day of doing things one can only do without a job. We will be playing foreign and made-up card games, taking turns calling everyone in our phones who we haven't spoken to in over a year, hopscotch. It's the middle of the day (because we all got up at noon), the middle of the work week but its the beginning of your weekend. Only in NYC is being jobless so rewarding. And now at HiChristina earn badges for doing jobless things. "I'm not really actively looking for a job mom, I haven't been in three months, that's how I got the unabashedly unemployed badge from HiChristina, there's a rub off decal too!" Collect all five badges, including the 'get-rich-quick-scheme-of-the-year badge!' It's all f un and no work today at the HiChristina anti-networking cocktail party. Hand-made muttled drinks by Christina Ewald. And a new guest host every week.

HiChristina
163 Eldridge Street, Manhattan
4p; $5, the $20 dues gets you a members only club card good for a full month of visits hichristina.com

***** Also on WEDNESDAY *****

Kings County Cinema Society Presents the King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

The hilarious and suspenseful look at two die hard arcade gamers and their fight for the title of all-time Donkey Kong world champ. Follow modest family man and schoolteacher Steve Wiebe in his epic quest to unseat record holder Billy Mitchell, a child phenom, hot sauce salesman, and douchebag egotist of the highest order. Following the screening we'll have a Donkey Kong battle royale projected up on the big screen. Gamers and newbies alike are welcome.

Littlefield
622 Degraw, Brooklyn
7p doors, 8p film, 9:30p Kong; $free
718 855 3388
littlefieldnyc.com/event-detail/?id=6853 kingscountycinemasociety.org/?p=324

XXXXX THURSDAY, APRIL 1 XXXXX

The New York April Fools' Committee Is Proud to Announce:

New York City's 25th Annual April Fools' Day Parade

The 25th Annual April Fools' Day Parade will begin at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street at noon, Thursday, April 1. Rain or shine, the parade will march down 5th Avenue to Washington Square Park for the post-parade festivities and selection of the King or Queen of Fools from the costumed marching look-alikes.

The theme for this year's parade is Up, Up and Away. Led by Grand Marshall Ben Bernanke, the parade will kick off with the Where's-the-Money Marching Band playing this year's theme song by the Fifth Dimension "Up, Up and Away in My Beautiful Balloon." Color commentary will be provided by Sarah Palin for her new Fox TV show "We Make It Up, You Believe It." Thanks to a contribution by a secret donor in honor of the parade's 25th anniversary, 10,000 red, white, and blue helium balloons, each with a crisp one-dollar bill attached, will be released along the parade route.

The floats this year will be led by Richard and Mayumi Heene with their Homemade Helium Flying Saucer Float. Next will be the Northwest Airlines Flight 188 "Siesta" Cockpit Float with pilot Timothy B. Cheney and first officer Richard I. Cole napping. Then a North Korea Missile Launch Float will launch H2O bombs into the crowd.

As the parade ends at Washington Square Park, the party begins, featuring live music, food, concessions, ans entertainment. There will be an Interracial Marriage Chapel officiated by Louisiana Judge Keith Bardwell; a Gay Marriage Counseling Booth manned by Miss California, Carrie Prejean; a Marriage Counseling Booth manned by South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford; and a David Carradine Enhanced Sexual Techniques Booth. The U.S. Secret Service will stand guard by a Meet-the-President Booth where President Obama will dispense "change pills" for change you can swallow.

The New York April Fools' Day Parade was created in 1986 to remedy a glaring omission in the long list of New York's annual ethnic and holiday parades. These events fail to recognize the importance of April 1, the day designated to commemorate the perennial folly of mankind. In an attempt to bridge this gap and bring people back in touch with their inherent foolishness, the parade annually crowns a King of Fools from parading look-alikes.

The public is encouraged to participate, in or out of costume, with or without floats, and may join the procession at any point along the parade route. Floats can be no wider than 10-feet and no longer than 25-feet. They can be self-propelled, towed, pushed or pulled. Customized bicycles, tricycles, baby carriages and aerial balloons are welcome. All participants are costumed look-alikes, and the Parade Committee assumes no liability for damages caused by satire.

We are grateful to the New York State Council on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts and Mayor Michael Bloomberg for their support of this year's parade. Also, in honor of this parade's 25th anniversary, we humbly thank the thousands of talented artists and craftsmen who have contributed to the parade's success over the years.

Parade starts: Fifth Avenue and 59th Street, Manhattan Noon; $free
For information contact Joey Skaggs, Committee Chair: 212 254 7878 aprilfoolsdayparade.com.

XXXXX UPCOMING XXXXX

• Vignettes for the Apocalypse 2010, April 7-18

XXXXX ONGOING XXXXX

Nonsense is too long. The great thing about the internet is that it doesn't really cost much to run long listings and exhaustive descriptions. It turns out that's ... exhausting. After several complaints and a little deliberation, we're trying a new format: On the first Friday of the month we will run updated ongoing listings in each section: events, learning, and help. Other weeks we're going for leaner, meaner sections. If you're desperate for something to do on an off-Tuesday night we suggest you either look back a few issues ago in your inbox, or poke through our online archives, which you can find under the subscribe page.

Also, a note about better rock shows. Nonsense does not straight list rock shows in New York unless they occur in tandem with puppet shows or jump rope tournaments or in subway tunnels or in graveyards. For listings of good shows, especially shows that feature independent bands at quality venues like Death by Audio and those booked by hard-working promoters like Todd P or Sleep When Dead, consult resources like ohmyrockness.com, brooklynvegan.com/, sleepwhendeadnyc.com/calendar/, or the lively New York Happenings listserve on Yahoo groups launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/nyhappenings/. For the most exhaustive list of underground shows at unusual venues, track down a copy of the extremely useful -- and handsome -- Showpaper.

XXXXX WISHLIST XXXXX

What have you been wishing for? Collaborators, grant monies, a new home? Please send brief listings to Alita at alitanonsensenyc.com. We only list available apartments, lofts, studios, and one-off rentals -- not spaces wanted.

***** ARTY STUFF *****

• Tiny Offerings is a collaborative performance event where each person who attends is invited to make an offering to everyone else. Artists are encouraged to bring or do something other than what they usually do -- i.e. some other medium or type of performance. An offering can be anything people like to do (tell jokes, stories, sing, draw, things we often think of a "talent") or something they know how to do (a weird trick or genetic tic for instance) or want to "show and tell" (a drawing, photo, sculpture, found object of interesting or sentimental value.) There's a time limit of three minutes (less is more). There are two non-auditions coming up on April 28 and June 1. The event is June 3. Contact brendah555(at)gmail.com. See roulette.org/events/event.php/HUTCHINSON10
• UnionDocs is looking for some dedicated help for internships and volunteer positions in the areas of editing and post-production, event documentation, administrative, and programming help. Contact info(at)uniondocs.org.
• Looking for an architect to volunteer time (or charge less than the market-rate wage) to help with a really awesome green roof design for a house in Bed-Stuy. We own the building and we've got some money to make our dreams (greenhouse on roof, rooftop stream-and-water-filtration-system, and more, weird passive solar design/aquaponic system) a reality, if you can help us draft some plans and get DOB approval. We will cook you many delicious meals in exchange and be the best references you ever have for your next market-rate gig. Contact Lauren at lorilouroo(at)yahoo.com or 718 783 8443.

***** SPACES *****

• Brooklyn art studio available: 300 square feet for $500 privately, or for $300 to share with another artist. Newly renovated "green" building in Crown Heights/Prospect Heights with many other artists and fabricators. Freight elevator, 24-hr access, radiant heat concrete floors, utilities included. Contact Annie 917 208 5799.
• My roommate Paola and I are looking for a new roommate starting April 1 (no joke). We have a large apt with a huge garden. This roommate would also get half of the shared office, so it's a lot of space. It's at Prospect and Flatbush and $1150 per month. Contact hans(at)at.or.at.
• Room Available in the Beast House Ever. $750 per month includes all utilities (electricity, heat, hot water, and wifi), one month security deposit. April 1 or 15 in beautiful Northside Greenpoint just few blocks from the East River. We are two ladies and two gentlemen in our thirties, plus three cats in a large and lovely 1100 square foot loft. Room is approximately nine by twelve feet. No window, natural light comes from large skylight outside door. Five by seven foot closet and six foot six inch ceiling -- sorry, really tall people but this won't be for you. Nooks in the rafters of the bedroom ceiling great for books and bits, hardwood floor. House features lots of light, fresh air and room for everyone, 750 square foot common area, seventeen foot ceilings. Large industrial windows, eat-in kitchen, large bathroom with tub, indoor bike storage, creative comfortable and quiet. Greenpoint Avenue stop on the G train. You are an ideal roommate with a job. We're friendly and cl ean but doing our own things. Space is legal live/work in industrial building. Sorry -- we're not looking for more cats! Contact Heather, Michael, Michelle and Brent, 917 981 4333.

XXXXX SPECTRE PRIORITY XXXXX

Before we had a name, the Spectre Event Horizon Group used to meet at a bar to commiserate and trade what our business friends like to call best practices. The group has expanded since then, but it remains focused on smartening the crowd mind. There are no subject limits; our favorite is the incredible sci-fi present, or anything that goes toward a better understanding of human behavior and our universe's ecology. Our simple intent is to connect good minds with as much quality mind-blowing information as we can freely locate and create a space for the informal trade of specialized investigative research, presented for the non-specialist.

The Spectre email list, which is a separate group from this column, is a moderated open forum. People are encouraged to join and to post. The list is compiled for Nonsense by J. Sinopoli. Contact us at spectre.event.horizon.group gmail com or spectregroup.org. Here's some of what came in this week:

***** SYNCO *****

http://spectregroup.wordpress.com/2010/03/26/synco/

syncho.com/index.html
cybersyn.cl/ingles/home.html
guardian.co.uk/technology/2003/sep/08/sciencenews.chile "During the early 70s, a rather remarkable experiment took place. Chile was in revolutionary ferment. In the capital Santiago, the beleaguered but radical marxist government of Salvador Allende, hungry for innovations of all kinds, was employing Stafford Beer to conduct a technological experiment known as Project Cybersyn, and nothing like it had been tried before, or has been tried since. Stafford Beer attempted, in his words, to "implant" an electronic "nervous system" in Chilean society. Voters, workplaces, and the government were to be linked together by a new, interactive national communications network, which would transform their relationship into something profoundly more equal and responsive than before -- a sort of socialist internet, decades ahead of its time.

As in many areas, the Allende government wanted to do things differently from traditional marxist regimes. "I was very much against the Soviet model of centralisation," says Raul Espejo. Until then, obtaining and processing such valuable information -- even in richer, more stable countries -- had taken governments at least six months. But Project Cybersyn found ways round the technical obstacles. In a forgotten warehouse, 500 telex machines were discovered that had been bought by the previous Chilean government but left unused because nobody knew what to do with them. These were distributed to factories, and linked to two control rooms in Santiago. There a small staff gathered the economic statistics as they arrived, officially at five o'clock every afternoon, and boiled them down using a single precious supercomputer into a briefing that was dropped off daily at La Moneda, the presidential palace. Allende had once been a doctor and, Beer felt, instinctively understood his no tions about the biological characteristics of networks and institutions. Just as significantly, the two men shared a belief that Cybersyn was not about the government spying on and controlling people. On the contrary, it was hoped that the system would allow workers to manage their workplaces, and that the daily exchange of information between the shop floor and Santiago would create trust and genuine cooperation -- and the combination of individual freedom and collective achievement that had always been the political holy grail for many leftwing thinkers.

In October 1972, Allende faced his biggest crisis so far. Across Chile, with secret support from the CIA, conservative small businessmen went on strike. Food and fuel supplies threatened to run out. Cybersyn offered a way of outflanking the strikers: The telexes could be used to obtain intelligence about where scarcities were worst, and where people were still working who could alleviate them. The control rooms in Santiago were staffed day and night. People slept in them -- even government ministers. The strike failed to bring down Allende. On September 10, a room was measured in La Moneda for the installation of an updated Cybersyn control centre, complete with futuristic control panels in the arms of chairs and walls of winking screens. The next day, the palace was bombed by the coup's plotters. Beer was in London, lobbying for the Chilean government, when he left his final meeting before intending to fly back to Santiago and saw a newspaper billboard that read, "Allende as sassinated." The Chilean military found the Cybersyn network intact, and called in Espejo and others to explain it to them. But they found the open, egalitarian aspects of the system unattractive and destroyed it."

Stafford Beer
metaphorum.org/
esrad.org.uk/resources/vsmg_3/screen.php?page=home/ cybsoc.org/StaffordCoup.wma
digitool.jmu.ac.uk:8881/R/CSKA9XEGH5341115KA516INXQBKKG542CUDPAXRN8KARHQRC26-00406?func=collections&collection_id=1234&local_base=stb

Viable System Model
mefeedia.com/entry/cybernetics-and-revolution-eden-medina/14957866 irevolution.wordpress.com/2009/02/21/project-cybersyn-chile-20-in-1973/ "Stafford is considered the 'Father of Management Cybernetics" and at the heart of Stafford’s genius is the "Viable System Model" (VSM). Eden explains that "Cybersyn’s design cannot be understood without a basic grasp of this model, which played a pivotal role in merging the politics of the Allende government with the design of this technological system. They settled on an existing telex network previously used to track satellites. Like the Internet of today, this early network of machines was driven by the idea of creating a high-speed web of information exchange. Stafford had hoped to install "algedonic meters" or early warning public opinion meters in "a representative sample of Chilean homes that would allow Chilean citizens to transmit their pleasure or displeasure with televised political speeches to the government or television studio in real time." dubbed this undertaking ' The People’s Project ’ and ' Project Cyberfolk ’ because he believed the m eters would enable the government to respond rapidly to public demands, rather than repress opposing views."

from Fanfare for Effective Freedom, by Stafford Beer williambowles.info/sa/FanfareforEffectiveFreedom.pdf "I am a scientist, but to be a technocrat would put me out of business as a man. I believe that cybernetics can do the job better than bureaucracy - and more humanely too. What is cybernetics that government should need it? It is, as I should prefer to define it today, "the science of effective organisation". This is not to argue that all complex systems are really the same, nor yet that they are all in some way "analogous". It is to argue that there are fundamental rules which, disobeyed, lead to instability, or to explosion, or to a failure to learn, adapt and evolve, in any complex system. And those pathological states do indeed belong to all complex systems - whatever their fabric, whatever their content - not by analogy, but as a matter of fact. Homeostasis is the tendency of a complex system to run towards an equilibrial state. This happens because the many parts of the complex system absorb each other's capacity to disrupt the whole. If the system is to remain viable, if it is not to die, then we need the extra concept of an equilibrium that is not fixed, but on the move. Revolutions, violent or not, do blow societies apart - because they deliberately take the inherited system outside its physiological limits. The cybernetician will expect the politician to adopt one of two basic postures in the face of these systemic troubles. The first is to ignore the cybernetic facts and to pretend that the oscillations are due to some kind of wickedness which can be stamped out. The second is to undertake some kind of revolution, violent or not, to redesign the faulty instruments of government. It seems very clear to me as a matter of management science that if in these typical circumstances you do not like violence, then you should quickly embark on a pacific revolution in government. If you do not, then violence you will certainly get. Outstandingly it was Chile that embarked on this recommended course of pacific revolution. But in the wider world system, Chile’s experiment was observed as an oscillation to be stamped out."

XXXXX LEARNING XXXXX

We look for the sort of classes you circled in college course catalogs but never managed to fit into your schedule. And we also look for the kind of things that no college could teach. Cheap and eclectic is the rule, though all rules get broken occasionally, and we especially love workshops, round-tables, and teachers who won't take your work out of your hands and show you how to do it right. One-time listings are categorized, with general recurring classes at the end. We thrive on your suggestions, so make sure to tell us about upcoming classes that you think are nifty-keen.

Learning is compiled and edited weekly by Libby Sentz. Send listing suggestions, announcements, and corrections to her at libby(at)nonsensenyc.com.

***** LEARNING: FRIDAY *****

Guinean Drumming

Learn Guinean rhythms with a wonderful drummer and teacher, Ibrahima Kolipe Camara. Continues every Friday.

Chelsea Studios
151 West 26th Street, Manhattan
6:30-7:30p; $15
646-897-2293
kolipe81(at)yahoo. com

***** LEARNING: SATURDAY *****

Beginning MIG Welding with Ryan

The class that made Madagascar Institute famous. Impress your friends, your older brother, and that cute bartender with your tough new skill. This three-hour introductory welding class will teach you the very basics of MIG welding and familiarize you with the tools you’ll need to finish a project–the grinder, the chop saw, etc. Bring leather gloves and eye protection, and wear heavy-duty all natural fibers–jeans and a long-sleeve shirt. And no open-toed shoes–boots are ideal. Polyester and nylon will melt onto your skin if hot molten metal drops onto them and ouch that hurts. You will get dirty.

Madagascar Institute
217 Butler Street, Brooklyn
1p; $35 members, $60 nonmembers
Register: madagascarinstitute.com

***** LEARNING: Also on SATURDAY *****

ABCs of Hoop Dance and Twins

Join Squiddie and Claire de Luxe for a three-hour intensive open to all levels. Two workshops will run simultaneously: You can choose to either develop your hoop dance vocabulary ("ABCs of Hoop Dance" for beginners) or explore the exciting new world of two hoops ("ABCs of Twins" for more skilled hoopers).

St. Vincent’s Gymnasium
180 North 7th Street, Williamsburg
2:45p check-in; 3-6p; $45
Advance registration/payment required: bananahoops(at)gmail.com

***** LEARNING: SUNDAY *****

Sewerama

A multimedia presentation with all the information you can stomach about our sewers and how they affect the Gowanus Canal. One of the defining features of modern life is that we can dispose of waste with the push of a button or the crank of a lever ad never think twice about the consequences. But are we really rid of it all? If you live in Prospect Heights, Boerum Hill, Park Slope, or Gowanus and it’s a rainy day, chances are that what you flush down the toilet will end up in the Gowanus Canal. That’s because New York City channels street runoff and household sewage into a Combined Sewer System which responds to excess flow (i.e., from heavy rains) by discharging it into our waterways. Whether or not the recent designation of the Gowanus as a Superfund Site will solve this problem is decidedly murky, but solutions are available.

Proteus Gowanus
543 Union Street, Brooklyn
4p; $free
proteusgowanus.com

***** LEARNING: Also on SUNDAY *****

The Victory Garden in Spring

During World War II, 20 million garden plots were planted, producing 44 percent of the fresh vegetables in the U.S. In these economically stressed times, the victory garden is making a comeback. Not only can you cut food costs by growing your own vegetables, the food will be fresher and more delicious than what you can buy at the store. This course will focus on planting and cultivation techniques for maximum yield from even small spaces, troubleshooting for insect and disease problems, and succession planting and harvesting techniques for continuous crops.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Palm House
1000 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn
Noon-4p; $54 member, $60 nonmember (includes $8 materials fee) 718-623-7220
bbg.org

***** LEARNING: Also on SUNDAY *****

The Fundamentals of Cooking: Fish

Seasoned chef Carl Raymond leads this four-hour-long intensively interactive class. You'll learn how to cook fish from start to finish: choosing the freshest fish in the market, saving money by butchering your own whole fish, and using proper techniques and recipes. Plus you’ll learn a few more advanced knife skills (such as how to sharpen your own knives at home), how to whip up some tasty side dishes to expand your culinary repertoire, and how to make easy sauces that pull your fish dishes together. Following this intensive and hands-on course, we’ll wind down just like the pros, over a glass or two of wine and your delicious creations.

The Kitchen at Astor Center
399 Lafayette Avenue, Manhattan
Noon-4p; $125
astorcenternyc.com

***** LEARNING: Also on SUNDAY *****

Spring Backyard Composting Workshop

The NYC Compost Project in Manhattan presents this spring backyard composting workshop to help you put all those dead plant scraps from last year to good use. The workshop will cover the science behind composting and how to set up and maintain a compost bin in your backyard or community garden. Different bin set up options will be illustrated, including a two bin system, compost tumbler, and metal can bin. Discounted backyard compost bins will be available for purchase. Registration is required.

East 103rd Street Community Garden
103rd Street between Park and Lexington, Manhattan Noon-2p; $5
info(at)lesecologycenter.org
lesecologycenter.org

***** LEARNING: TUESDAY *****

Easy Meals for Entertaining

Learn to make simple, fresh, delicious food in little time. In this class for novice cooks we will bake, make a pasta pesto, find a new way to serve an old favorite veal dish, and learn to prepare quinoa, polenta, and other vegetarian dishes. Sally Kraus and the Palm House staff will demonstrate techniques. Students and teachers will have lunch together and talk about what was learned. Students leave with a great new kitchen tool and everything they make. You will be standing awhile, so dress casually and wear flat shoes.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Palm House
1000 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn
11a–3p; $86 member, $92 nonmember (includes $40 materials fee) 718-623-7220
compost(at)bbg.org
bbg.org

***** LEARNING: WEDNESDAY *****

Intermediate Act Development With Dr. Lucky

This workshop will provide burlesque performers who have some experience with a chance to develop their acts, increase their professionalism, and add to their "tricks of the trade". The class will focus on act development and feedback, exercises and improvisations to hone performance skills, and sessions on professionalization. This series will help you develop individual performance style and rid yourself of bad habits. By giving and receiving constructive feedback, we will create a safe, productive environment to help us get to the next level of performance. Performance experience required. Prerequisites: Dr. Lucky's Character & Persona Workshop, or include a description of your performance experience to be considered for registration. Showcase tentatively scheduled for May 7.

School of Burlesque
167 Orchard Street, Manhattan
Five Wednesdays
6:30-9:30p; $250
schoolofburlesque.com/drluckyburlesque.html

***** LEARNING: THURSDAY *****

Make Your Own Absinthe

Up there with vibrators and bicycles, here’s another 19th-century fad too good to fade back into history. Build your fin de siecle street cred by learning to brew the infamous green liquor at home with almost no special equipment. We’ll talk about how to source or grow your own ingredients, flavoring, purifying your finished product, and tasting. You will emerge from the second session with a bottle of finished absinthe made by you.

Madagascar Institute
217 Butler Street, Brooklyn
Two Thursdays; 7-8:30p
$35 members, $55 nonmembers
Register: madagascarinstitute.com

***** LEARNING: Also on THURSDAY *****

Bent Ply: Skateboard Deck Making

This is an intro to bent veneer lamination through making a skateboard. The process entails the glue up of several thin layers of veneer around a form and allows for the creation of exquisitely curved wooden objects. In three classes you will learn the process of basic bent lamination, including mold-making, gluing up the veneers, air-pump vacuum bag use, shaping, sanding, and filing. The class will explore different methods of decorating and look at both classic and unusual shaping of skateboard decks. You will have time to create your own individual design and to decorate the underside of your newly made board by applying your own interests, such as painting, printmaking, graffiti, wood burning, illustration, or etching. The materials fee includes your own manual vacuum system, which you may use for future projects. The hardware for the decks (wheels, bearings) will not be provided. Led by Elise McMahon. NOTE: Mention Nonsense NYC when you register for a 10 percent discount

3rd Ward
195 Morgan Avenue, Brooklyn
3 Thursdays, 7-10p
$180 members, $225 nonmember; $110 materials fee 3rdward.com/calendar

***** LEARNING: UPCOMING *****

• Clues From Family Photographs (techniques for dating images and resources for researching photographs), Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Manhattan. April 2; 3:15-4:15p. nypl.org
• Embroidered Portraits, Textile Arts Center, Brooklyn. April 10, 17, 24, and May 1; 11a-2p; $150, $25 materials fee. textileartscenter.com
• Forage and Feast (a foraging field trip deep inside a Yonkers public park plus a cooking class in Brooklyn). April 17; noon-10p; $35. Must register in advance: lab247.ning.com/events/forage-feast-1

XXXXX HELP XXXXX

It is a wonderful thing, to help. Helping strengthens communities and allows you to meet new friends. With that in mind, we look for one-day volunteer opportunities with no long-term commitment required. We want to be open to fresh ideas and think of help in a broad way. These listings could include anything from a large-scale day-long service project to a local theatre company that needs volunteers for load-in; from an artist looking for film extras to a community garden that needs a few extra hands. Our goal is simply to help groups or individuals that serve the greater good in small but significant ways. Unique and interesting job opportunities are acceptable fare for this section as well. Looking for ways to help out? Need volunteers to get your own community project off the ground? Know of any existing opportunities? Send your requests to Rob Voigt at robpastyvoigt(at)gmail.com.

***** HELP: WEDNESDAY *****

Strange Democracy

In this new performance at Museo del Barrio, post-Mexican writer and performance artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña deals with the end of the Bush era and the formidable challenges facing Obama. He also denounces the anti-immigration hysteria and assaults the demonized construction of the US/Mexican border. We need outgoing volunteers to be able to greet people as they enter the programs, help with registration, and assist the artists, such as making sure the performers have all the necessary materials and acting as a runner, etc. Please sign up if you’re interested.

El Museo del Barrio
1230 Fifth Avenue, 3rd floor, Manhattan 5-6:30p
bit.ly/cEF7Sf

***** HELP: WEDNESDAYS and SATURDAYS *****

Hudson River Pageant, Costume Workshop

Join us at Earth Celebrations Puppet & Costume Workshops, helping teens and adults create the spectacular costumes, masks, and giant puppets for the Hudson River Pageant, inspired by the diverse marine species of the Hudson River. Workshops culminate in Earth Celebrations' Hudson River Pageant. The pageant is a magnificent creation of art, performance and community engagement to honor and restore the Hudson and address climate change. This event will recur every Wednesday and Saturday through May 19th, with the actual parade on May 22nd.

World Financial Center, Courtyard Gallery 220 Vesey Street, Manhattan
Wednesdays 6-9p: Costume Workshops
Saturdays noon-4p: Puppet Workshops
Earthcelebrations.com
212 777 7969
mail(at)earthcelebrations.com

***** HELP: INTERN *****

House of Yes Performance Venue Seeking Interns

We already have some great people on our Yes Team, but we can always use more. House of Yes is seeking experienced, enthusiastic interns to assist with events, productions and projects. Our Space is a venue for events and theatrical productions that also includes Skybox Aerial training facility, Make Fun costume studio and a recording studio.

We are specifically seeking individuals interested in: *Lighting/Sound/Video Tech
*Event management
*Promotion/communication
*Creative Project Management
*Event set-up and décor, making stuff, doing stuff, etc.

Experience in nightlife, theatre or event production is a plus, and positive attitude is a must. Benefits include free admission plus one to all of our events, performances and parties as well as special deals in Skybox aerial space and Make Fun costume workshop. Must be available for at least one event per week. Stipend will be provided to dedicated individuals, with paid job opportunities in the future.

If you are interested in any or all of these aspects of House of Yes, please send along a brief description of your interests, background, and any relevant experience.

houseofyes.org
info(at)houseofyes.org

***** HELP: SOON *****

Domes for Haiti Grantwriter and Creole Translator

Grassroots relief work project Domes for Haiti is looking for experienced grant writers to start working immediately on writing grants for this project. If the grant you write is successful, you will get paid and you'll know you helped house some homeless kids in Haiti away from the rainy season. Please contact us today and send a resume of successful grants you’ve authored.

Domes for Haiti is also looking for a Creole translator to join us for relief work in Haiti for the first two weeks of May. Airfare will be covered, but some traveling money will be required. Must be comfortable camping and familiar with a crescent wrench. Trip will be for two weeks, but may be extended. If you have family in Haiti, that's a bonus. Please contact me at and send a resume with any work on it that you think may lend useful experience to bringing emergency transitional shelter to orphans in a torrential downpour.

info@domesforhaiti.org
domesforhaiti.blogspot.com

***** HELP: UPCOMING ******

• Before Friday, April 9. The American Cancer Society is looking for volunteers for the 19th annual Bark For Life, a canine event to fight cancer, taking place on Sunday, May 2, 2010 at Riverside Park, NYC, located at West 108th Street and Riverside Drive. The American Cancer Society’s Bark for Life event is a noncompetitive walk for dogs and their owners to raise funds and awareness in the fight against cancer. Bark For Life is a fun and exciting event featuring demonstrations, contests, activities and a relay-styled 5K walk. This fundraising event celebrates the care giving qualities of our canine "best friends" and honors their contribution to helping people stay well and get well. By supporting Bark for Life, you help the American Cancer Society save lives, and that helps us move closer to our ultimate goal of creating a world with less cancer and more birthdays. For more information on the event and to sign up to volunteer, please visit us at RelayForLife.org/NYCBark. Volunteers must be confirmed by April 9, 2010. bit.ly/cY7JFc
• Saturday, April 10. Art party and benefit for Ray Cross. The Addtract Consortium and Page Not Found are joining forces to host a benefit for Bushwick Print Lab owner Ray Cross, who was robbed not once but twice after a horrific bike accident. Incidents like this should remind us of how blessed we are as a community: we create with total freedom, make lavish performance spaces out of dingy warehouses, and parade costumed through the streets with bacchanalian abandon. We're there for the good times, so let's support each other through the bad. Want to help out? Here's how: Artists: Donate your work. Page Not Found will be holding a silent auction, so if you've got a piece (or two) you'd like to see go to a good cause, look no further. Performers/Make-Up Artists/Oddballs/Carnies/People Dressed as Robots/Robots Dressed as People/DIY Weirdos of Every Persuasion: Donate your antics. Ya'll know what to do. Good Folks Everywhere: Donate your time. Volunteers to work the door, do a little crowd control and help out with set-up and tear-down will receive serious karma points. Let's get together on this one, people! Contact lily: addtract.ncc(at)gmail.com to get involved. Love, Joe Che, Lily M, and the PNF/Addtract crew.
• Yo, he really doesn’t mind being Elmo. bit.ly/bJvKrO

XXXXX NONSENSE XXXXX

nonsense nyc is a discriminating resource for independent art, weird events, strange happenings, unique parties, and senseless culture in new york city.

please remember that you are always free to pass nonsense nyc along to anyone who needs to see it, but you do not have permission to use any of the listings for your commercial publication. if you are receiving this list as a forward from someone else you can sign up for yourself at nonsensenyc.com/subscribe.

we now accept donations to cover the costs of producing this list, and suggest $5 a year from individual readers or $20 a year if we list your events. to be clear, this is not a traditional subscription, but a donation because you believe that independent artists should support other independent artists. if you've ever paid for a ticket to see your friend's band you know what we mean. you can make donations here: nonsensenyc.com/special/. and thank you.

XXXXX END XXXXX

Toward a belief in general beauty.