Chris Fream, reigning champ. (Photo: Courtesy of Big Buck Hunter)

Next Thursday, the Big Buck Hunter Girls (yes, there is such a thing) and the game’s reigning world champion will appear at Pine Box Rock Shop. Sounds like a proverbial blast! But why is the Bushwick bar being graced by their presence? Well, the NSA the folks at Big Buck Hunter monitored nearly every bar in NYC that has an HD console and guess whose machine got the most plays between June 21 and July 21? Pine Box smoked the competition with 2,138 plays — over 70 per day.

Here’s how others stacked up. We’re not sure whether we’re proud or ashamed that most of these fall within Bedford + Bowery’s domain.
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All good things must come to an end: Aliya Naumoff’s portrait of Kim and Thurston will be on display tomorrow.

Well, this bites.

Fuse Gallery, the little space behind Lit Lounge, is closing after more than a decade. Owner and curator Erik Foss just sent out the e-mail: the show that opens tomorrow — featuring Aliya Naumoff’s potraits of Iggy Pop, Marilyn Manson, and Karen O — will be Fuse’s last, and the East Village gallery will pack up after “Perceptions” closes on Sept. 11, of all days.
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If you missed The Birdman when it was part of the LES* Film Festival (it ended up winning the fest’s Neighborhood Award), here’s your chance to watch it in its entirety. Filmmaker Jessie Auritt just put the short doc online, and you can now do what you’ve never gotten up the nerve to do IRL: venture into the Birdman’s quirky First Avenue shop, packed floor-to-ceiling with cassettes, CDs, and VHS tapes (it’s no surprise the proprietor refers to cell phones as “cellu-phones,” and doesn’t know how to use them).
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