Perhaps on Monday you caught the premiere of Bravo's newest reality show, Kell on Earth, about fashion PR dragon-lady Kelly Cutrone. (You may remember her from her appearances on The Hills and The City.) If so, you may have spotted Cutrone's long-haired new assistant, the one described as having a "high-end goth style." That is Andrew Mukamal, a Scarsdale native, and we caught up with him to find out what it was like to be filmed during your second week on the job.

Were you always interested in being on a reality show, or did that just...

It's Sundance time again! Even if you don't follow the Utah film festival, each year movies emerge from Sundance and go on to become big hits. (Little Miss Sunshine immediately comes to mind.) I'm sure in a few months you'll all be talking about Howl, The Runaways, or Company Men, which are all screening at Sundance.

What about us? Do we have any local horses in the race? Though I couldn't find a single film with our area's biggest indie film mainstay—Stanley Tucci—I scoured the program list and was...

Big awards news this week, right? Oh no, I'm not talking about the Golden Globes. (I liked Avatar a whole bunch, but I still find something totally uninspiring about its big win.) I mean the American Library Association Youth Media Awards.

Chances are, unless you work in publishing, you didn't follow the big announcements for the Caldecott, Newbery, and other awards. Lucky for you, you have our local bookstore owners, librarians, and (ahem) bloggers to remind you when they are decided. Hopefully, those reminders will be persistent—even if you don't have kids, these books are often terrifically...

People say there are certain rivalries where you have to choose a side. You're either a Beatles person or an Elvis person. You're a Yankees fan or a Red Sox fan. You either love Blur or you love Oasis. You can't like both.

Add a new one into the mix: You're either a Jay Leno person or a Conan O'Brien person. Sure, there are Letterman people out there, and I know of at least one dedicated Colin Ferguson fan, but even if they're not your favorite late-night personalities you still have to choose between the current Tonight Show host or the previous one.

Why? Right now there's a huge dust-up going on about NBC's late-night lineup. Previously, O'Brien had his eye on the prestigious Tonight Show slot and—though I don't know how he did it—he...

Since a blogger can't start a new year without processing the pervious through some kind of twelve-month-encapsulating, sum-it-all-up list, as the local pop-culture blogger I present to you my top eight references to Westchester in popular culture in 2009.

8. The Office's Big Downsize
In a May episode of The Office, all of the branches of Dunder Mifflin gather for a company-wide picnic (and volleyball tournament that gets a little too competitive). Yet the picnic didn't seem as well attended as the previous year—possibly because, as an HR rep explains, the company had to close its Yonkers branch due to the economic downturn. Ouch. I guess there goes our chances of ever hosting an Office...

I can understand why people hate holiday songs. The same pool of 50 or so tunes are piped into every store starting in November (if we're lucky), and a lot of artists rush out terrible recordings of the same ten classics to try and get a piece of the Christmas-song kitty. (To see what I'm talking about, read the list of the worst Christmas songs written for us by WFUV's Rita Houston—and I'm just assuming she didn't have enough room to include Miley Cyrus's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" or anything from David Archuleta's Christmas from the Heart.)

But, while there's a lot of bad holiday music floating around out there, there are...

Going to the movies on Christmas is a tradition that's almost as time-honored as kissing under the mistletoe. Also, the kids are on break and it's cold, so it's easy to ship them off to the multiplex. Here is our handy guide to what's in theaters over the holiday vacation:

For (Almost) the Whole Family

Avatar
You must have heard the hype by now: James Cameron's decade-plus follow-up to Titanic, and its successor as one of the most expensive movies ever made, is hailed as a cinematic game-changer employing an army of...

Uh-oh. Time was, if you did something stupid, the only people who could make fun of you for the rest of your life were the people who were there and saw it happen.

That time is no longer.

Now, the whole Internet is laughing at you. Tons of blogs are popping up dedicated to mocking others. Yes, it's mean-spirited and snarky. Blogs like these reinforce our current troll-like culture, in which anonymous nastiness is becoming the norm. On the other hand, sometimes people deserve it, and it can be hilarious. And, perhaps, fear of being on blogs like these can correct some bad behaviors. (For example, without my permission, my photo is included on a not-linked-to below site that points out the triteness of dressing up like a character from one of my favorite filmmaker's movies....

There's all this talk around of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but where's Let's Just Sit And Relax Wednesday? Or Man, My Wallet Is Empty Thursday? Right now is that awful, three-week period during which holiday craziness has you strapped for cash, but just sitting and twiddling your thumbs until 2010 arrives is too boring to seriously consider.

Thankfully, ArtsWestchester has your back. They've built in a day in which you can go out and enjoy the arts, let off some steam—and not spend a dime. On this weekend after Thanksgiving, let's all be thankful for December 6, aka Free Arts Day.

Free Arts Day started eight years ago as a response...

This weekend was a good one for the ladies. Ladies dominated the box office, with the top two movies being the female-led New Moon and The Blind Side. And, now that the weekend is over, a new lady is taking the spotlight: Lady Gaga.

Her songs are everywhere. (When was the last time you went out without hearing "Poker Face?") So is she, putting in appearances everywhere from Saturday Night Live to the VMAs to Sunday's American Music Awards—always in her trademark costume-party-couture outfits. And people are only going to devote more attention to her this week, now that she's released a new EP, The Fame Monster.

Yet while she's no stranger to press, few articles mention that Lady Gaga is actually a local. She's from...