For those of you staying in the city this weekend, a couple extra days off school might mean some gloriously unscheduled time to hit up the city’s museums. Here’s my two cents on which current exhibitions are worth the trek and which ones aren’t.

Melanie Joness continues her series The Fifty States of Literature with Annie Proulx’s collection of short stories Close Range, all set in Wyoming.
Annie Proulx opens her collection of Wyoming short stories, Close Range, with a quote from a retired rancher: “Reality’s never been of much use out here”. Proulx’s landscape lends itself to this otherness, [...]

This week’s trailers all do with some really weird stuff, that doesn’t make a lot of sense to most normal viewers…
A Cool Nerd Movie?—Star Trek: What has JJ Abrams done to the beloved Star Trek series? He’s made it into an action film with lots of space fights, sex, and hot young people? Wait a [...]

It’s that time again…this weekend is Spec’s favorite New York City food event, the New York Chocolate Show. For just $28, you can head down to Pier 94 (at 54th St. and 12th Ave.) and taste chocolate until you drop this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Tonight’s preview, featuring a fashion show centered around designs made [...]

Safe Trip Home, the third album from practically forgotten artist Dido, does not quite justify the three years she has been spending on the album. Dido’s first album, No Angel, went seven times platinum in the UK and four times platinum in the US. Her second album, Life for Rent, which she released four years [...]

Friday, I ventured downtown with [part of] my LitHum class to see a production of all three plays of Sophocles’ Oedipus Cycle.  The production is a unique one because it uses Peter Constantine’s adaptation, which is apparently more colloquial than others (lines included, “Hey, you! Hey, Oedipus!”  While this did not always match the rather [...]

I just finished the second level in what I think is San Francisco…remember when people thought that cityscape with the Chimeran ships was CG? Anyway, if I were to compare this to the first two levels in Resistance 1, I think the game starts off on a much better but still fairly weak foot.

Disclaimer: This isn’t 100% Spec A&E territory, but it’s more than a little related to TV, so I hope you understand.
Sunday’s New York Times featured what was quite possibly the best column ever written. Maureen Dowd called Aaron Sorkin, creator of The West Wing (and Sports Night and Studio 60), to find out what would [...]

The end of November usually means that the gaming season is finally slowing to a halt. But not this year!