Oh, you saw the fiend, did you? Peter Braunstein came into your Cobble Hill coffee shop and bought a $2 cuppa joe? You even looked him in the eye? You were sure it was him, yeah? He knew that you knew, oh yes!

The big ol' mess pictured above is your beloved Astor Place Cube. They'll be unveiling it at 11 AM — we'd love it if someone could run on down and get us a picture of all the photobloggers wetting themselves.

Blogger The Assimilated Negro is happy to report on his ride in one of the new hybrid taxis, which he says will slowly replace the current fleet over the next five years:

• Slate cultural editor Meghan O'Rourke, Times writers Ginia Bellafante and Daniel Mendelsohn, and a number of other equally-credentialed writers convene tonight at the Galleria illy for "An Evening of Catullus," readings from the works of the celebrated Roman poet. We remember enough high-school Latin to translate: "works of the celebrated Roman poet" means "graphic buttsex in a dead language." (6-8 pm tonight, 382 West Broadway between Spring and Broome Streets).
• Acclaimed African musicians Konono N 1 create Bazombo-inspired trance music using "thumb pianos called likemb , microphones made from old car parts, and pots and pans." Bring your own spatula to S.O.B.'s on Varick Street and see whether you can join in on the fun. [flavorpill]
• Housing Works kicks off its Fashion 4 Action Sample Sale today at its Chelsea thrift shop, featuring over 120 designers. A word to the wise: take that spatula along. 80% off retail always means a rumble. [Upcoming]

Just moments ago, a reader writes in:

As the search for suspected fireman-rapist and former Women's Wear Daily and Village Voice reporter Peter Braunstein becomes intolerably interminable (and alluringly alliterative), his mother Angele Braunstein has come forward to offer her theory that her son may have killed himself. In October 2004, Braunstein overdosed from a mixture of beer and Prozac, and his mother believes this was a potential suicide attempt. Ms. Braunstein also noted that her son had anger problems, low self-esteem, and to be "a fragile man who could respond to the ongoing public scrutiny by killing himself."

• The Post runs pictures from accused sex perv Peter Braunstein's "dream wedding," which resulted in a short-lived marriage back in the early 1990's. On a side note, this is about the 15th picture we've seen of Braunstein, and we still have no clue what he looks like. Is the dude some sort of photographic shape-shifter? [NYP]
• Great news: Crack and meth addicts make better financial investments! Time to start treating that bum with a little more respect. [Under the Counter]
• Google technology makes celebrity stalking easy! [Lifehacker]
• Why women like Hilary Swank date men like Chad Lowe: defying Manhattan's romantic caste system. [NYO]
• We've no idea who this Katherine woman is, the mysterious girl who swaps and redistributes prescriptions amongst her friends — but we'd very much like to be her BFF. [NYT]

• Check out the lost-but-found manuscript of Beethoven's Grosse Fugue, on display at Sotheby's before it's sold in London. Because the only thing that makes you seem more intellectual than caring about a really old piece of paper is caring about a really old piece of paper that's about to bring home a shitload of money across the pond. [Paper]
• More pretension: McSweeney's, the New Yorker for cool kids, teams up with NPR at the Symphony Space tonight, recruiting funny people to read a smattering of short-stories by Miranda Mellis, Pia Z. Ehrhardt and Brian Evenson. If the "I heard on NPR..." construction wasn't getting you laid, you can be sure that the McSweeney's/NPR one-two punch will. [flavorpill]
• The Politicker, Gotham Gazette, and the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy host a roundtable discussion on the role of the media in the 2005 New York City elections, complete with an interpretive dance performance from Brian Ellner.

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

In today's Black List over at the Black Table, wandering media reporter Greg Lindsay divulges his connection, or lack thereof, to accused sexual assaulter and former Women's Wear Daily reporter Peter Braunstein:

As we conduct our vigilant search for the Fake David Cross — a vile imposter who claims to be the actor so he can score free drinks and easy women — we're finding that reality is not absolute, and the truth of reality is inextricable from the reality of truth. Or something.

Moss is in danger? How about, oh, half the women in New York media?

• We apologize for today's lapse in coverage on suspected rapist Peter Braunstein. Rest assured, it has nothing to do with anything other than the fact there's nothing new to report. Kate Moss has been warned to look out for homeboy, and NYPD is tracking him through his Metrocard use. Alas, the whole system operates on a two hour delay. Brilliant. Honestly, Richard Belzer would've had this shit taken care of last week.
• 50 Cent expands his faux-ghetto empire to the extremely hard-ass realm of publishing. G-Unit books will be a collaboration with MTV/Pocket Books and deal with a range of topics, from cash and hoes to candy stores. [Contact Music]
• Authorities seize 136 pounds of heroin from a Staten Island storage facility, thus prompting the gutter pirates of Tompkins Square Park to riot. [Newsday]
• Starbucks holiday campaign invents a new alternative to "it's" and "its:" ITs. [Fawny]
• Been stalking various members of U2 since 1986? Then now's your big break: you can bid on the chance to be an extra in Bono's upcoming film. [eBay]

We're not much ones for the email forwards, but the one we're about to discuss is so new, so damn detailed, that we're inclined to indulge ourselves and reprint the whole thing for your pleasure. Of course, it helps that the subject is Lindsay Lohan.

There's an interesting story on the front page of the Times metro section today about voter research conducted by the Bloomberg campaign. Typically, you see, voter lists like these are constructed from publicly available information — magazine subscriptions, voting registrations, neighborhood, race, ethnicity — and then different messages are targeted at different subsets. But because Bloomie had so much money to throw around, his pollsters could afford to call hundreds of thousands of voters to find out about voters' interests and preferences.

• Coming to you all the way from Portland, Oregon, dance company BodyVox takes over the Joyce Theater to present Civilization Unplugged, an 80-minute technologically-inspired performance that includes "an interactive dance driven by cell phone calls from the audience." Finally, a chance to show off that My Humps ringtone. [flavorpill]
• Dress like your mom for cheap: striped shirts, boat shoes, and navy-everything will be flying off the racks (we re sure) at the Nautica Sample Sale. [Paper]
• The New School gets comprehensive with a reading by the 2005 National Book Award finalists — including the kiddie authors — and a panel entitled Porn Goes Mainstream, all in one night. We ll let you decide whether to pay $10 to hear Joan Didion talk about her really, really bad weekend or to listen to maybe-kind-of-famous people talk about porn for free. It s pretty damn clear where we ll be. [New School x2]

TimeWarner crapped all over our afternoon yesterday, meaning we were unable to get to the following minutae. We're sorry for inconveniencing your ADD.

In this edition: A reader with far too much time on his hands sends in a detailed transcript of his interaction with Six Feet Under alum Michael Weston, the triumphant return of Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams, John Cusack and Arianna Huffington, Billy Bob Thorton, Cynthia Nixon, Paul Bettany, Nic Cage, Kyra Sedgewick, Nicole Richie, Naomi Campbell, Nicky Hilton, Tinsley Mortimer, Brandon Davis, Alek Wek, Tim Robbins, Lauren Graham, Christina Applegate, Robert Downey Jr, Rachel Leigh Cook, Chloe Sevigny, Jason Lewis, Gisele, Lauren Ambrose, Anne Hathaway, Mandy Moore, lingering doubt over Tara Subkoff, Paul Giamatti, Gabriel Byrne, Jim McGreevey, Sofia Coppola, Caroline Winberg, Yao Ming and Patrick Ewing, Steven Van Zandt, Ed Koch, Chris Cornell, Ariel Foxman, Trey from the OC, Leonard Nimoy, Heidi Klum impregnator Flavio Briatore, and Dan Hedaya.

• We're not quite sure how Cat Power and Blind Boys of Alabama ended up on the same bill for tonight's kickoff of the Music Downtown concert series, but all the free tickets have already been given away. Still, Chan Marshall obsessives take heart: you can queue up on the standby line at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center before the show starts. [flavorpill]
• The good folks at the Mnemosyne Foundation put on a lecture titled Defragging The Da Vinci Code: Will the Real Leonardo Please Raise Your Hand? at Rockefeller University tonight. Informative? Probably. Timely? About two years ago. [Upcoming]
• Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon and Guggenheim fellow Kevin Young read at the 92nd Street Y tonight. Alas, they'll need more than literary accolades to woo us from the Rogan sample sale on Franklin Street. [Upcoming & Paper]

The first step in any civil-rights movement is building awareness. And so we feel it incumbent upon ourselves to help one Colleen Sussman, whose letter to the editor of the Times was consigned to merely the City section, get word out about her plight.