No Excuse for Boredom in New York

"Only in New York" is way overused, but that's only because it's true.

So while I may hibernate and hide away in my (mostly) warm apartment, there's still plenty of only-in-New-York experiences going on around the city. Although I don't attend most of them -- no one can -- I often read about them in an email newsletter I subscribe to.

The Skint lists "free and cheap" things to do in New York every single day. I live vicariously through the listings and occasionally find a real gem. Paul's also indebted to the Skint, although he may not realize it. I first heard about the homebrew club he belongs to through a Skint listing for one of its beer competitions.

Many of the listings are the typical things you'll find in any large city -- author readings, bar crawls, festivals. But there's always a handful of unique events among the dozen or two listings in each issue.

I've picked through Skint listings from the past few weeks and included some of the most interesting below -- maintaining the Skint's trademark lowercase letters (which drives me a little nuts but must be super easy to edit) -- to give you an idea of the variety of things offered. Only in New York.

• 11pm: nerds + burlesque = nerdlesque. followed by strip operation! the brick, $10.

• 8pm (+ 2/3): buried alive! = deborah kaufman's intimate performance staged on a tabletop with sets constructed entirely of matchboxes. observatory, $12. 

• 10pm-4am: bangon!nyc’s 'uniform party' takes over a 2-level secret location for an all-night dance party filled with folks in various takes on professional attire. time to pick up my birthday suit from the cleaners! grand street l train stop area location tba, $10.

• 8pm (+ 2/6-11): ars nova shows you how to rickmanssage a spexy milf in the urban dictionary plays, short works based on the crowd-sourced entries in urbandictionary.com, $15

• 7pm: a former grocery store condiment demonstrator tells all at confessions of a condiment hustler. magnet theater, $7. 

• 8pm: morbid anatomy presents 'the search for granny-dump mountain,' an illustrated lecture by justin nobel about a japanese mountain where villagers leave their elders to die of exposure and starvation. observatory, $5. 

• 7:30, 9:30pm: puppets act out works inspired by the music of the beach boys at tonight's puppet playlist. the kraine theater, $8 adv, $10 door.

• 2-4pm: build your own wheeled jalopy to race at the ice box derby in central park. 105th @ 5th ave, free

• 4pm: sample pimento cheese and watch a screening of short doc. pimento cheese, please with director nicole lang at brooklyn kitchen. $5.

• 5:30pm: tappy hour = tap dance class in a bar! jimmy's no. 43. $20 admission ($3 off if you menton the skint) includes a drink.

• 9pm: celebrate friday the 13th with the undead at an 80s-themed zombie formal dance at the bell house. $12 adv, $15 door (admission includes a drink ticket).

• 3-11pm: dozens of musicians play every single beatles song... on ukulele (!) at the 4rd (stet) annual beatles complete on ukulele festival. feat. leah siegel, alyson greenfield, the jingle punks orchestra, more. brooklyn bowl, $10 (bring a uke to play at show start, get in free).