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Room 237 Director Rodney Ascher on Looking Through the Eyes of The Shining Obsessives

Also read: Here Are Five Awesome/Crazy Theories About The Shining from Room 237

AVENUE QUEUE

Start your Oscar celebration a day early

Brad Paisley Tells Country Audiences There's Nothing Wrong With White Folks Becoming the Minority

Every couple weeks, starting now, the Voice takes a hard listen to the music in which millions of Americans soak. Brad Paisley, "Southern Comfort Zone" Current Billboard Country Singles Chart Position: 10 The Verdict: Holy shit, songs on the radio can still be important! So, here, in a shimmering ... More >>

Rage Against the Machinima

As the stakes get higher on YouTube, video stars are finding safety—and power—in numbers

Cooper Union Students Rally Against College Debt Everywhere in Fight to Keep Own Tuition Free

The Cooper Union students who commandeered the clock-tower at the school's Foundation building and coordinated yesterday's day of action in Cooper Square, did so to preserve free tuition for CU students, but also to protest rapidly rising college tuition costs at institutions everywhere. "We're al ... More >>

Alex Cross: The Dumbest Movie of the Year?

NYFF: Brian DePalma's Passion & Noah Baumbach's Frances Ha

Here's Nick Pinkerton on two highly anticipated films from NYFF's main slate: Brian De Palma's Passion and Noah Baumbach's Frances Ha: Brian De Palma and Noah Baumbach have become thick as thieves--odd when one considers that the two filmmakers' bodies of work seem, on the surface, to have positive ... More >>

Mr. Ahmadinejad Is Coming to NYC; You Know What That Means!

Protests. Tons of them.It has become a common trend now in New York City news that when the sixth President of the Islamic Republic of Iran comes to town for a United Nations gathering, it can only be expected that hundreds of people will meet him half-way with angry remarks and on-the-ground disapp ... More >>

The Strange Fate of Kim's Video

The best video collection in New York was shipped to a Sicilian town with a promise that it would be kept accessible to cinephiles. Here's what really happened to it.

Dinesh D'Souza's 2016: Obama's America: The Five Most Hilarious Lowlights

Stacy Dawn Murphy, 20: Another Death at Scientology's Flagship Narconon Drug Treatment Center in Oklahoma

I just got off the phone with Colin Henderson, who is frenetically monitoring breaking news in Oklahoma, where yet another patient at Scientology's flagship Narconon drug treatment center has been found dead. Jeanne LeFlore of the McAlester News-Capital broke the news earlier today that Stacy Dawn ... More >>

Q&A: Soul Clap On Meeting Diddy, Wolf Lamb Initiation Rituals & Fighting For No Reason in Beantown

"Before today was yesterday and tomorrow is the future," but this is what happened in between. In a very short period of time, Boston party starters Soul Clap splashed down onto the international scene in their quantized spaceship of funk. Eli Goldstein and Charles Levine were pulled up and into the ... More >>

Small, Beautifully Meaningful Parts

David Edgar Love: "I Think I Have Scientology By The Balls"

When I talked to David Edgar Love by Skype at his Montreal apartment Wednesday evening, he sounded exhausted -- he'd had only an hour of sleep in the past two days. "I'm pretty tired. I was up until about 5 this morning, then I had mnql1 wake me up at 6 and had that radio interview," he says, cred ... More >>

Why Irish (Ex-Scientologist) Eyes are Smiling

We have a St. Patrick's Day special report for you today, and we hope it's early enough in the day that half our readers aren't soused already. This week, yet another story about how badly Scientology is faring in Ireland reached us as the Irish Examiner reported that the mission in Dublin is exist ... More >>

Q&A: Rhys Chatham On Playing With Oneida, Taking Up Trumpet, And The Survival Of New York

Even via Skype, Rhys Chatham remains profoundly, permanently enthused. The giddy 100-guitar maximalist/minimalist yin to Glenn Branca's foreboding 100-guitar maximalist/minimalist yang, Chatham's '70s/'80s innovations—rounded up by Table of the Elements on 2002's An Angel Moves Too Fast To See ... More >>

Rise of the Facebook-Killers

At the pinnacle of the social network's success, its critics are busy building its replacements

RentStuff.com Wants to Become the 'eBay Meets Facebook' of the NYC Rental Market

Most New Yorkers are pretty O.K. about renting things, at least when it comes to our living spaces. As for those living spaces, we're pretty resigned to them being on the small side -- so small that we might have to rent additional storage space for, say, our skis or summer wardrobes or collection o ... More >>

Scientology Cruise Ship as Hellhole: The Ramana Dienes-Browning Story

Ramana Dienes-Browning and Iyana​Last week, Steve Cannane of Australia's ABC network and its program Lateline broke the story of Valeska Paris, a woman who says she was held against her will on Scientology's private cruise ship, the Freewinds, from 1996 to 2007. In that story, Cannane also ta ... More >>

Scientology Sinking Like a Cruise Ship: Time for Thursday Stats!

Each Thursday at 2 pm, Scientology workers madly dash to finish up their work before turning in their weekly statistics. We like to do the same thing here at the Voice, and on Thursday afternoons add up the wins and losses for the church around the world. We took last week off in order to highli ... More >>

Scientology's Cruise Ship as Prison: The Voice Interviews Valeska Paris (UPDATED and CORRECTED)

NEW: Valeska's sister Melissa Paris tells her own story of imprisonment and unpaid, underaged labor in Scientology's Sea Org. ALSO: Our interview with Ramana Dienes-Browning, who knew Valeska Paris on the Freewinds and has her own story of hellish treatment. ALSO: A slideshow of Scientology celeb ... More >>

10 Real-Life Etiquette Tips for Men, From a Woman

​Today the Huffington Post has an intriguing entry (with slideshow!) from Daniel Post Senning, who happens to be Emily Post's great-grandson. He explains that etiquette is not just for women, oh no -- it is for men, too, and men, in fact, "are hungry to know what to do, what is expected of the ... More >>

Think Different: Rightbloggers Mourn the Death of Noted Conservative Hippie-Hater Steve Jobs

The death last week of Apple founder Steve Jobs was sad news for his friends, family, and the computer and design world in general. Rightbloggers mostly took it as an occasion to tell the world that Jobs was right-wing -- or, if not right-wing in the sense of having actually expressed right-wing be ... More >>

Q&A: Deerhoof's Greg Saunier On Keeping Communication Open, Releasing A 7-Inch With Jeff Tweedy, And Finding Beauty On The G Train Platform

After a recent boisterous and discordant performance at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, Deerhoof's dressing room briefly felt like the center of the indie universe. Hanging out and sipping on the beer and wine that usually go to waste (Deerhoof is more of a tea-swilling bunch) were members of The Di ... More >>

Q&A: Awesome Tapes From Africa's Brian Shimkovitz On Cassette DJing, His New Label, And His Overflowing Mailbox

The blog Awesome Tapes From Africa delivers on the promise of its name. Founder Brian Shimkovitz launched it as a way to share with his friends some of the cheap cassettes he found while in Ghana (on a Fulbright Scholarship for ethnomusicology), and in the years since it began its audience has since ... More >>

Kitty Lambert, First Wed New York Lesbian, Will Join Former NOM Operative Louis Marinelli on Marriage Equality Tour

​This just in: if politics makes strange bed fellows, same-sex marriage makes them all the stranger. Kitty Lambert, one half of the first same-sex couple married in New York State just after midnight Sunday, will be joining Louis Marinelli on the National Organization for Marriage Equality Tou ... More >>

Casey Anthony Career Plans! Here's A Great Idea!

​So she got off. I guess that really was rotting pizza in her car trunk, not the decomposition stench of her murdered and duct taped daughter. So what's in Casey Anthony's glamorous future? I know!

Lulz Security Hackers Statement Actually Makes Some Sad, Nihilistic and Scary Sense

​The hot new amorphous group of internet hackers call themselves Lulz Security -- as in, we do it only for the lulz (a.k.a. laughs) -- and have already positioned themselves against the reigning mischief-making internet kings at Anonymous and 4chan, which likely beget LulzSec, at least in atti ... More >>

Julian Assange Squared Off With Bill Keller Via Skype

Assange, happier times​The battle between Julian Assange and New York Times executive editor Bill Keller took place in person -- well, almost -- over the weekend, for the first time since Keller escalated the beef in a New York Times Magazine tell-all. (There, he called Assange "arrogant, thin ... More >>

Ruckus in Bahrain: Activist Abdulhadi Alkhawaja Beaten and Dragged From His Home

Alkhawaja: Beaten in Bahrain​Leading Bahraini human-rights activist Abdulhadi Alkhawaja was beaten bloody and dragged out of his house by government police over the weekend in Manama, his daughter (and former Fulbright Fellow at Brown University) Maryam Alkhawaja tells the Voice. Abdulhadi Al ... More >>

Al Jazeera English to Introduce Twitter-Heavy News Show

​Al Jazeera English is launching a new show in May called "The Stream" based around input from various social media -- instead of a traditional news program format, The Stream will rely on tweets, Facebook activity, and YouTube videos from people watching and Internet in general. Producers wil ... More >>

Live: Tom Tom Club Do Their Pee-Wee's Playhouse Thing At Irving Plaza

Try and guess the DJ's name. Pics by Rob, more below.​Tom Tom Club/Matthew Dear Irving Plaza Wednesday, January 12 Better than: A Heads reunion. Tina Weymouth: "A lot of you are too young to know this show, but it feels like Romper Room. "Chris Frantz: "This song is about all the cute little ... More >>

The 5 Most Awkward Interactions Between Kanye West and Rihanna in the New Interview

​Alright, alright, we know, but it's Kanye's Week, or Kanye's World, even, and we're just living it, so forgive us if our mind is a bit preoccupied with the guy right now. (We are far from the only ones.) And, when not tearing down the Bowery Ballroom, invoking the ire of the Twittersphere, do ... More >>

Robots Are Finally Taking Over, As Promised

Robo-Bilton​Nevermind what you've been told or seen in Star Wars, the robot of the future "looks like an extra-large lollipop on wheels." We know this now because Nick Bilton, New York Times tech reporter, has been "baby-sitting" one for three weeks. In one of the more fun assignments in recen ... More >>

Gmail: Now Making Your Phone Calls, Too

​Today, Google took one more step toward world domination when they announced that people will now be able to make phone calls through Gmail. This feature means you can receive phone calls with your Google Voice number, place calls as you normally would but through Gmail (which you're probably ... More >>

iPad Arrives.

​The first release of the Apple iPad went on sale at 9 this morning to the long lines of customers who were camped out in front of Apple Stores and Best Buys waiting to buy them. The hand-held 9.5" touchscreen computers, which can access WiFi but not yet 3G (those go on sale later this month) ... More >>

AT&T Seems to Stop iPhone Sales in New York; Apple May Be Planning New Version That Actually Works As Phone

The Consumerist details a conversation with an AT&T customer service rep, who allegedly told a Brooklyn resident that she couldn't buy an iPhone because "New York City is not ready for the iPhone." Which is weird, as in the streets of New York the iPhone is ubiquitous --not especially useful as a ph ... More >>

The Sailor Man in New York

Invisible seafarers in a city still addicted to shipping

George Clooney in Up in the Air

Getting fired sux, but Jason Reitman says u will b OK l8r

Interview: Steinski (a/k/a Steve Stein), Part I

Next, the Toy Truck Will Plié

A disarming manifesto digs holes under trend-speak

Google: The New Port Authority

A juggernaut gets ready to inject a big glob of silicon into New York City