ART: "Drawing Art and Politics" seems like a fitting event to have on the calendar today. "Spend an evening with New York’s renowned graphic artists Jules Feiffer, David Levine, Stan Mack, and Edward Sorel, as they examine the ways in which complex social and political issues are depicted by artists in today’s media. Jules Feiffer will moderate a discussion that explores the roots of political art and social realism in the context of John Sloan’s......

READING: It's another First Tuesday event at McNally Robinson, and this time around author and activist Mark Crispin Miller invites Anthony Lappe to center stage. The executive editor of the Guerilla News Network also produced an award-winning documentary on the war in Iraq for Showtime. More recently, he's created a graphic novel called Shooting War with illustrator Dan Goldman, which is "a spoof of the network news, the war in Iraq, and the burgeoning 'citizen......

MOVIE: The Brooklyn Independent Cinemas series (which takes place the first and third Monday of every month) delivers two shorts tonight. First up is Nevel is the Devil, where "a supervisor at a consumer product testing lab interrogates two suspects of a devilish prank." The second is The Last Romantic, which follows Calvin Wizzig, a poet, around New York in hopes of getting published. Watch the trailer here. 7pm // Barbes [376 9th St, Park......

While at SXSW last month we had the pleasure of drinking some Lone Star beers in an alley with Michael Pitt & Co. His band, Pagoda, signed with Thurston Moore's label and was in Austin to play some shows. Autopilot was on hand so we got it all on tape (though much was left on the cutting room floor), the edited footage just came in and...just be sure to watch to the very end. Pitt......

READING: Jonathan Franzen reads at the Bam Cafe tonight, but not after a buffet that include wine from the Pine Ridge Winery and other treats. There will also be a live acoustic performance and a Q&A with Franzen. The hefty price tag includes dinner, wine, tax, and tip. 6:30pm // BAM Cafe [30 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn] // $45 THEATER: The first annual FRIGID Festival is breaking ice in the East Village at the Kraine, the......

TASTING: Forget wine and cheese...come pair up your favorite fromages with some beer! FreeNYC points us to Bierkraft - Park Slope's proprietor of some of the finest microbrews, cheeses, and chocolates. They're having a pairing of 5 beers with 5 cheese tonight, here's what's on the menu: Beer Samplings: Slyfox Pale Ale Rogue Brutal Bitter Southern Tier IPA Oskar Blues Gordon Smuttynose Imperial Stout Cheese Samplings: Chebris Zamorano Polder Schapenkaas Cambozola MiraBleu Yum! 7pm //......

Remember that smart-alecky retort, “It’s a free country”? That's the brazen spirit behind Radical Living Papers: A history of the free, alternative, counter-culture and underground press, 1965-75. Situated in the Passerby bar, it no doubt will inspire many fervent debates about freedom of the press. The rag-tag collection of zines promotes everything under the sun: politics, revolutions, evolutions of the planets, freak-outs, love-ins, support of green politics, gay liberation, power to the people, the peace......

DISCUSSION: Tonight Thurston Moore and Jim Jarmusch will have a little talk, titled "Transforming New York: Music and Film at Night". This is in conjunction with Doug Aitken's sleepwalkers, so Aitken will be there too, and the three discuss nighttime, just after the sun goes down. 6:30pm // MoMA [11 W 53 St] // $10 SIGNING: Ron Jeremy has gone and written a book, of course, it's as dirty as most of his films. You......

On the cusp of November, Music is a Better Noise opened up at P.S.1. The exhibit brings together musicians who make art and (you guessed it) artists who make music - or at the very least, use music as a creative motivator in their art. The exhibition is broken up in to two parts. The first part explores New York-based artists and musicians who emerged in the city during the mid-1970s to early 1980s, and......

Time to start the new year off right, by seeing live music and not being left out on the cold cold sidewalk listening to your favorite songs echoing down the snow-filled street. This month there are a lot of hyped up bands coming our way. We are mainly talking about the Arcade Fire, if you don't have tickets we don't know what to tell you. If you're good at haikus you could try this contest.......

This is where Gothamist tells you what tickets to buy...because not every band gives it away for free on a flatbed truck (yes, we've somehow managed to make the free U2 show sound dirty.) So, before the tickets sell out and you are left bargaining on Craigslist, we are here to tell you what to buy... -* First and foremost, they just put up extra tickets to the Guided By Voices shows this weekend. BUY......

Gothamist readers, summer (if you want to call it that) is almost over. The season of free, outdoor concerts--many of which were ruined due to rain--has passed. Time to go back indoors, into the clubs, for the best music in the city. The week ahead looks fairly decent. Sure beats the Olympics. When you think supergroups, don't think of Asia, the Velvet Revolver or the Three Tenors. Think of To Live and Shave in LA,......

[Sets and the City is a new section for Gothamist Arts & Events written by Karen Ruttner, Jen Carlson and Janelle Gunther. Check back weekly for new profiles and interviews with the bands that make this city tick.] Madison Strays have been together a little over a year, and yet their drugged-up psycho-prom music already seems at home amidst the swirls of post-punk and new wave that are crashing through New York�s underground. Their......

Andrew Krucoff, Rhythm Guitar...

Stacey Herron, AOL Music...