• The Section Quartet brings some class to the Mercury Lounge with their classical chops and fancy instruments, which they'll use to interpret the work of Radiohead. Go and reminisce about the first time you heard Kid A. [flavorpill]
• Billy Joel takes a break from being a has-been to perform at Madison Square Garden. Just be careful walking home after the show: if Billy's behind the wheel, no one's safe. [Upcoming]
• Lars von Trier made a film for his senior thesis; it won Best Film at 1984 Munich Film Festival. Not to make you feel woefully inadequate about your college career or anything. [Paper]

We've spent the past few days feeling inexplicably refreshed and — dare we say it? — cheerful for absolutely no reason. Despite the dismal weather, we've hit the streets and loved them. Apropos nothing, we've smiled at strangers and enjoyed the little spring in our step. For the first time in ages, we can actually breathe and it feels lovely.

Last week it was announced that Trader Joe's — the western temple of affordable, luxury snacks and oddities — will be moseying onto the island and blessing 14th Street in just a few months. Lifelong cityfolk, however, might not know what to do in the midst of Joe's multitudes, and so a Los Angeleno advises:

A fire engulfed 575 Broadway late Saturday night; the Soho building houses American Eagle, Lure Fishbar, Interview magazine and, alas, Prada. Allegedly the store had just received a shipment of over $5 million in merchandise, most of which we can only hope will get marked down and sold in some Chinatown warehouse.

So we actually planned to show up yesterday at No Pants 2006, in which a group of wacky kids were to ride the 6 train pantsless in a bravura bit of street theater. We weren't going to depants, of course, but we thought maybe we'd "happen" to be on the same train so that we could watch things as they happened. (It's rare that our voyeuristic and reportorial instincts so nicely overlap.) But then we suspected that a few people we knew might be among the depantsers, and we didn't want to be recognized. Plus the folks called and offered to buy us a late brunch. So we didn't go.

• The indie folks of Williamsburg — united by their shared love of cowboy boots, cotton leggings, and tourmaline hair-straighteners — fear the corporatization of their trust-fund-supported lifestyle. [Newsday]
• Credit Suisse shits all over the Met-Life building and, in turn, Madison Square Park. [Manhattan Offender]
• Harper Collins and Daddy Murbucks can't afford their own domain name for promotional blogging purposes? [Eyeball Hatred]
• After you go through the secret door and get the secret number to secure your secret reservation at La Esquina, they'll secretly dick you over and cancel your secret table. [Miss Kate]
• Jennifer Solow is a self-described famous author. If you have to say it, you aren't. [Jennifer Solow]

• Jesus, whether you believe in him or not, loves you, and that's why he's given you the documents from Paris Hilton's deposition. You knew the bitch was dumb, but you never could have predicted this level of retardation. It's medical, really.
• The transcript for Colin Farrell's sex tape makes our hearts surge with hope. Just like we felt the first time we saw Bridget Jones' Diary.
• We expect NYC restaurants to be filthy, but Soho House? Oh, the $1300/year horror of it all!
• We've seen promo posters for The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, based on the book by Fake Writer JT Leroy — and the marketing department behind them clearly has no clue what the fuck is going on.
• Opinionistas writer Melissa Lafsky is revealed. Now that you know her name, you can also know she's the estranged step-sister of Jordan Catalano!
• William Shatner returns to his true calling as an awards show host, which naturally ups the worth of his kidney stone to $25K.
• Packs of cigarettes seem to be falling from the sky, for reasons we can't quite figure out. Either some sneaky guerrilla marketing is afoot, or God has taken pity on your habit.
• Your job sucks. Get a new one with Gawker Jobs.
• Stop reading James Frey, and defintely stop reading him in public.
• Tina Brown takes a "break" from the Washington Post. Will we ever see her again? Or has she lost her will to buzz?!

Bad news, nicotine-addled boys and girls. Just moments ago we got a call back from one Dana Bolden, a spokesman for Philip Morris USA. Mr. Bolden — yup, Dana's a guy, or else he's a chick who's been smoking several packs a day for five or six decades — assures us that his upstanding corporation is not engaged in any sort of grassroots-marketing trickery that involves leaving packs of cigarettes around the city. In which case there's only one answer left: God wants us all to develop cancer.

This piece of original photojournalism conveys the intensity of the situation, no?

Sightings are sent in by our disturbingly attractive readers; send yours to tips@gawker.com.

Friday:
• Serena Maneesh, the best thing to come from Norway since Kjartan Fl gstad, plays at Northsix. [Paper]
• Movies for socially-conscious people: Why We Fight, a level-headed look into the American War Machine, and How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (And Enjoy It), a documentary on the career of Melvin Van Peebles. [flavorpill]
Saturday:
• Sophie B. Hawkins (yes, that one) performs at the Canal Room tonight. Go on: it's not embarassing once it's for nostalgia's sake. [Upcoming]
Sunday:
• Writers Working features contemporary authors reading from works-in-progress. Go and tell James Oliver Cury, Jen Nails, Intern Hugh and others what they're doing wrong before it's too late. [WW]
• Pantsless fun on the subway? We're so in. [Improv Everywhere]

Mark your calendars, kids, because this Sunday is No-Pants Sunday.

The delightful Great Cigarette Plague of 2006 continues, with more readers reporting free packs of smokes raining down on them like locusts. Two new tales arrived overnight. First:

This just in:

• Under the Radar 2006, running tonight through Sunday, presents 14 contemporary theater pieces at the Public Theater and its partner locations. Seeing as the pieces are of the "too hip to be popular" genre, we imagine you'll have no problem scoring tix. [flavorpill]
• Stars Like Fleas, Charles Atlas and Roxy Pain, who "shoot deathrays from their eyeballs," perform at Tonic. Who could ask for anything more? [Upcoming]
• Filmmaker Michael Ferris Gibson spent 24 hours on Craigslist and walked away with a movie. Not quite as good as a guinea pig or a free room and board in exchange for sex, but you can't be lucky all the time. [Paper]

Jack Lebewohl's workmen didn't cart off every last bit of Second Avenue Delitritus last week. One last relic remains: This Deli-logo'd garbage can. Streetwalking photog Bucky Turco sends along the above image and reports that the thing is a hell of a lot harder to remove than you'd think. But if you show up with a crew of stout-hearted men, we're sure you can finagle it.

• Screening at the Film Forum, The Fall of Fujimori documents the corrupt and inhumane career of the ex-Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori — who, despite his dishonest past, is "still popular among Peruvians." Documentary movie stars, they get away with everything. [flavorpill]
• In order to write her memoir The Year of Yes, Maria Dahvana Headley agreed to go out with every person who asked her for an entire year. The working assumption behind this premise being that people actually ask writers out — GUFFAW! Barnes & Noble on Astor Place at 7. [Paper]
• The Bon Savants play at the Mercury Lounge, with Billioniare Boys Club and 1986 opening. Clever names for clever people. [Upcoming]

For what seems like the last decade or so, L train riders — and not just the Williamsburg hipsters whose inconveniences we've all mutually agreed to Schadenfreudically enjoy, but also normal people just trying to get back and forth between the West and East Villages — have been plagued by near-constant weekend and nighttime service interruptions. Must change to a different train at Third Avenue! No service between Lorimer and Eighth! The whole line is closed! It has been a colossal pain in the ass, but, deep down, we knew it was for a good cause: The TA was installing fancy new signaling equipment, systems using computers and radio transmitters and other newfangled technologies invented in the century since the subway's electromechanical signaling system was developed.

While mystery pizzas are falling on the East Village, the uptown kids are getting much luckier. Mystery cigarettes, it seems, are falling all over Manhattan, but only north of 23rd. A tipster incredulously reports:

A few days ago, inexplicably, a perfectly intact pepperoni pizza was seen resting between the tracks of the uptown 6 at Astor Place. A befuddled reader writes: