We admit it. We're very interested in the goings on with same-sex marriage across the nation, but we're not attorneys here at The Village Voice. Fortunately for us, our friend Chris Geidner at Metro Weekly is (or used to be, before he gave it all up for the far better paying field of journalism). We chatted with Geidner in the above video to find out just what the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional really means. What will NOM do? When could same-sex lovin' Californians possibly get married? And what's the path ahead?

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​The definition of what makes a woman has never been as black and white as simply having a vagina. In Young Jean Lee's latest production, the Obie recipient puts this perplexing label to test in the Untitled Feminist Show, where audiences experience what it's like being female--in all its form, and completely nude, through a performance featuring six famed downtown stars of theater, dance, cabaret, and burlesque.

The practically silent dance piece, part of the 7th annual Coil Festival sponsored by P.S.122, includes Becca Blackwell, World Famous *BOB*, Amelia Zirin-Brown (a/k/a Lady Rizo), Hilary Clark, Katy Pyle, and Regina Rocke.

For the continuously fascinating, and hilarious, Blackwell, who's been seen in the productions of Circus Amok, Room For Cream, and Parlour, a film (directed by Sharon Hayes) at the Whitney Biennial, dealing with gender and identity issues is always a constant battle. And although this isn't the first time she's been naked on stage, because of the rawness of this show she says "it's really the most naked" she's ever been. More >>

Stuart Appelbaum

​When Speaker Christine Quinn presented her compromised version of the Living Wage Bill last week, we immediately wondered how it would affect retail-clothing workers, #47 on the Voice's list of the 100 Most Powerless New Yorkers.

We got in touch with Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. Via an email Q&A, we asked Appelbaum all of the questions we had about the proposed bill, from how many people it would affect, to if (after Quinn's compromise) it would actually help employees of tenants of city subsidized projects.

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Yesterday, graphic designer, vlogger and comedian Franchesca Ramsey posted her video "Shit White Girls Say...to Black Girls," the latest (and to us, the funniest) YouTube video riff on "Shit Girls Say." It got over 1.5 million views its debut day. The Voice spoke to Ramsey by phone this morning to chat with her about her YouTube videos, being accused of hating white people (even though she's engaged to one), and her flap with Perez Hilton.

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Facebook

​Earlier this year, we wrote about how a bevy of civil rights groups like GLADD and the NAACP supported, inexplicably from our point of view, the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile. That deal fell apart yesterday, and the telecoms will not be combining forces after all. One civil rights group that never supported that union was Color of Change, who sent a petition with 53,000 signatures to the FCC to oppose it. The Voice spoke with the group's Executive Director Rashad Robinson, who is both a member of the NAACP and former employee of GLAAD, about Color of Change's relief that the merger went down.

Here's an edited transcript of our phone interview.

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It's the holidays and time for nightly benefit parties. This month, we'll be circling back to non-profits and art groups we've talked to through out 2011 as they gear up for their annual shindigs.

Today we're talking to Eve Biddle, the Co-Director of the Wassaic Project, which is having a silent auction benefit tonight at Invisible Dog Gallery in Brooklyn. As we wrote back in August, the Wassaic Project is part of the "Williamsburg on the Hudson" art scene emerging north of the city, in the tiny village of Wassaic. Their summer festival, which we've attended the past two years, we've found to be part Burning Man, part music festival, part camping getaway -- and a great deal of fun. Art and music are exhibited in a barn, an animal auction ring, and a tall grain elevator.

Starting this year, however, the Wassaic Project will be running year round art residences. Here's an edited transcript of our conversation with Biddle about the project, how it started, and where it's going.

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​City University of New York students will be protesting tuition hikes this afternoon, and all classes at Baruch's Newman Vertical Campus have been cancelled. It will be déjà vu for Conor Tomás Reed, a CUNY PhD student and a graduate teaching fellow at Baruch College. He was one of five people arrested last Monday, November 21, when a large contingent of CUNY instructors and students were attempting to voice their opposition to planned tuition increases at the CUNY Board's meeting at Baruch. They were not allowed into the meeting, however, and were arrested in the lobby.

We spoke to Tomás Reed over Thanksgiving weekend about the planned tuition increases, CUNY security, being arrested, and the second attempt to protest tonight's board meeting.

Here's an edited transcript of our exchange.

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Courtesy Milton Glaser

​Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing Milton Glaser, the 82-year-old graphic designer behind, to name just a few, the "I Love New York" logo, the DC Comics "DC bullet" logo, the famous Bob Dylan poster, and, of course, New York Magazine, which he founded with Clay Felker in 1968, for my article in this week's issue of the Voice, "How to Be a New Yorker."

Glaser spoke of the early years of New York Magazine and revealed his amazement over the success of his "I Love New York" logo, which he did for free in 1977. (Hilariously or not, the state came after him for copyright violation when he did "I Love New York More Than Ever" after 9/11.) He also shared what he thinks it means to be a New Yorker -- and why this is the only place for "real New Yorkers" to live.

Our interview, after the jump.

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​Two Truths and a Lie is a live storytelling event in Brooklyn, which mixes real life tales with bald faced lies and challenges the audience to decipher which is which. The latest edition is happening tonight at Fada Bistro in Williamsburg. We chatted with the creators of the project, Mitra Bonshahi and Sylvie Lubow, to ask them about how it works, why they do it, and why the worst story (involving a facial yeast infection) was a truth, not a lie.

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​Ralph Richard Banks is the author of the new book Is Marriage for White People? While Banks, a Stanford Law professor, was in town for an event at Cardozo Law School, we met him for lunch in the West Village to talk about why black folks marry so much less often than whites, why black women are the least married demographic, and why white dudes seem to be more accepting of a black woman wearing natural hair than black men.

(And, even though the book is largely about heterosexuals, we squeezed in some queer questions on Prop 8 and Tyler Perry.)

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