As I waited in line for the US premiere of Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator at the Hamptons International Film Festival on Saturday, I was reading The Program, Toni Natalie’s new memoir about surviving NXIVM. It was a funny coincidence, given the clear similarities between hot yoga pioneer Bikram Choudhury and New Age cult leader Keith Raniere. Both are charismatic manipulators who offered healing and empowerment to their vulnerable, mostly female followers, only to psychologically, financially, and sexually prey on their devotees while raining ruin down on anyone who threatened their empire. But while Raniere has been convicted of racketeering and sex trafficking (his sentencing date was announced earlier this month), Choudhury is still teaching his trademark brand of hot yoga to starstruck students– a fact that is not lost on filmmaker Eva Orner. More →

Kazu Makino, the lead singer of indie rockers Blonde Redhead, performed her new solo album, Adult Baby, on her home turf last Friday night at Williamsburg’s Rough Trade. Her fans and friends, including longtime bandmates Simone and Amedeo Pace, enjoyed her subdued, dreamy tracks, a soft departure from Blonde Redhead’s rock music.

Bedford + Bowery spoke to KAZU ahead of the show as she rehearsed at upstate’s Flying Cloud Studios with her live band, including violinist Darian Thomas, drummer Ian Chang, and Sam Evian on synthesizer. The songs on Adult Baby were influenced by her time on the Italian island of Elba, which the Pace brothers introduced her to before she returned there a few years ago by herself. “Elba means something personally to me; I want to show that,” KAZU told us as we discussed the video for her single, “Salty,” which was filmed on the island. “The video will be part of the full movie we shot for the album that featured an international crew from Italy, Austria and Canada. The costumes are by designer Isabel Marant in Paris and she didn’t make anything special for me, we just like the same things.” More →

Early in Lauren Greenfield’s new documentary about Imelda Marcos, The Kingmaker, there’s a photo of the disgraced former First Lady of the Philippines mingling with one of the many beautiful people in her orbit at the time: Donald and Ivanka Trump. This is our cue that the story of the Iron Butterfly remains relevant decades after she and her husband Ferdinand packed their diamonds into a bunch of diapers and fled the Philippines amidst the People Power Revolution.  More →

Clio Art Fair came to Chelsea this past weekend, bringing with it 54 artists from over 20 different countries and from all over the United States. The self-styled “anti-fair” catering to independent artists focuses on moving away from everything that sucks about traditional art fairs (like how you have to basically be famous already to show your work there). More →

What happened to the scathing roman a clef skewering Manhattan high society that Truman Capote may or may not have finished before his untimely death in 1984? After the US premiere of The Truman Tapes at the Hamptons International Film Festival on Saturday, director Ebs Burnough said he was of two minds.  More →

There’s a scene in Edward Norton’s adaptation of Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn where Moses Randolph, a not-so-subtle stand-in for New York’s master builder Robert Moses, describes following a party server into a supply room and having his way with her. More →

Nolita cafe Tulo House wants to know: “Did you nut today?”

The hashtag-worthy slogan immortalized by a bright blue neon sign (although, if your mom follows you on Instagram, maybe don’t post it) refers to the health spot’s homemade dairy-alternative milks. The self-proclaimed “first fresh nut-milk bar” in the city, Tulo House opened its doors last week. More →

The white brick and neon pink sign of Ruby’s Cafe is a welcome sight in the East Village, especially on a rainy day. The Australian cafe just opened its third New York location on Saturday, October 5, ready to provide East 11th Street with a welcome plate of vegemite toast or their famous panini-style Bronte Burger. More →

Tim Heidecker and Gregg Turkington’s Adult Swim show, On Cinema at the Cinema, has birthed so many wacky offshoots– a podcast! a spinoff show! a rock band and EDM remix! Oscar specials! live tours! Twitter battles! fan recaps!– that it’s hard to believe its creators haven’t explored every possible outlet for their shtick, which can best be described as Siskel and Ebert on crack (or rather, on Dr. San’s Nutritional Vaping Technology). But last night, after the opening of their first feature film, they revealed that the beginnings of an earlier On Cinema movie are lying around somewhere. More →

I remember the moment I almost emptied my bank account at the New York Antiquarian Book Fair. The object of temptation: a poster advertising the reopening of the New St. Mark’s Baths, the notorious gay bathhouse that was ultimately shut down by Ed Koch during the 1980s AIDS scare. Sci-fi illustrator Boris Vallejo’s artwork depicted a He-Man type riding a horned beast, flanked by ripped space aliens. It was like a Miles Davis cover if Bitches Brew was an advertisement for pre-Giuliani orgy dens, and I had to have it. More →