Motion Picture Chief Says China Will Pay Studios for Film Distribution

LOS ANGELES â€" Hollywood studios will soon begin receiving overdue payments for the distribution of their films in China, the Motion Picture Association of America chief executive Christopher Dodd said in a statement on Tuesday. About $200 million in payments had been withheld by the China Film Group, which oversees the importation of foreign films into China, while the group disputed its responsibility for the payment of a new value-added tax on theater tickets.

Mr. Dodd’s statement did not say whether the China Film Group would be required to pay the 2 percent tax, which it had sought to avoid. But the statement said the studios would be “paid in full” under a process that has already begun. People briefed on the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity, earlier said the film group had been withholding payments due for films released in China over the last year. Those included “Life of Pi,” “Man of Steel,” and other high-profile movies from virtually all of the major studios in the United States.

Motion Picture Chief Says China Will Pay Studios for Film Distribution

LOS ANGELES â€" Hollywood studios will soon begin receiving overdue payments for the distribution of their films in China, the Motion Picture Association of America chief executive Christopher Dodd said in a statement on Tuesday. About $200 million in payments had been withheld by the China Film Group, which oversees the importation of foreign films into China, while the group disputed its responsibility for the payment of a new value-added tax on theater tickets.

Mr. Dodd’s statement did not say whether the China Film Group would be required to pay the 2 percent tax, which it had sought to avoid. But the statement said the studios would be “paid in full” under a process that has already begun. People briefed on the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity, earlier said the film group had been withholding payments due for films released in China over the last year. Those included “Life of Pi,” “Man of Steel,” and other high-profile movies from virtually all of the major studios in the United States.

Music Stars Join First Lady to Get Youths Off the Couch

Hip-hop artists have been name-dropping the Obamas in song since they moved into the White House, and now some of them are volunteering for Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign with an album inspired by her work fighting childhood obesity.

The Partnership for a Healthier America, of which Mrs. Obama is honorary chairwoman, will join the Hip Hop Public Health Foundation in releasing a 19-song compilation encouraging children to exercise and choose healthy foods.

Doug E. Fresh, Travis Barker, Ariana Grande and other artists will contribute tracks to the album, “Songs for a Healthier America.” A video has already been released for the first single, “Everybody,” featuring Jordin Sparks, a winner of “American Idol,” with a guest appearance by Mrs. Obama speaking from the White House.

Other songs, including “Veggie Luv” and “U R What You Eat,” will be distributed to schools in New York City through the educational company Channel One. The album will be available as a free download on the Partnership for a Healthier America’s Web site when it is released on Sept. 30.

This is not the first time that the “Let’s Move!” campaign has used pop stars to broadcast its message. Beyoncé released a song in 2011 called “Move Your Body,” complete with a customized workout for children and a music video.

“Our mission is to make the healthy choice the easy choice,” said Drew Nannis of the Partnership for a Healthier America. “Few things do that as well as music. It doesn’t require any special apparel or membership cards. It just requires you to listen and start moving.”

The video for “Everybody” features Dr. Mehmet Oz and the Hip Hop Doc in a back-and-forth about cardiology and calories.

“We’ll talk exercise,” Dr. Oz raps.

“Not politics,” the Hip Hop Doc responds.

Discussing ‘Native Speaker’

Updated, 6:30 p.m. | Our live conversation about Chang-rae Lee’s 1995 novel of immigration and New York City politics, “Native Speaker,” is now underway. Post your thoughts and questions in the comments section below.

“Native Speaker” examines the uneasy assimilation of a young Korean-American, Henry Park, against the backdrop of a culturally diverse New York whose identity politics are becoming more fragmented. Henry’s means of income serve as a metaphor â€" and an arguably heavy one â€" for his own sense of self-fracture. He is a man with a complicated set of allegiances, to a mythic America, to a largely unknown Korea, to working-class beginnings and suburban affluence. Henry works in a field where he is required to wear many masks, as a spy in a corporate espionage firm that keeps its eye on foreign dissidents, agitators and the intensely ambitious.

The central target Henry is after in the book belongs to that final category: an Americanized (down to his J. Press clothes) Korean-American city councilman with mayoral aspirations who winds up scandalized. The politician, John Kwang, has the ease that Henry’s own father, with his broken English, never mastered despite ascending the class ranks, building a chain of Korean groceries and ultimately moving his family from Flushing to the hedges-and-stonework world of Ardsley in Westchester County.

Henry harbors ambivalence about his family’s trajectory, but in a sense that is a lot less interesting than the certainty with which the move to the upper middle class is rendered. “Native Speaker” has an early ’90s optimism about economic opportunity for immigrants in New York: the idea that great success will follow any effort to work hard. The good fortune Henry’s father experiences is a given.

But how true is that anymore (if it ever was) in a city where inequality has been rising sharply? How many second-generation Americans have the luxury of ennui? Of discomfort about leaving cramped apartments for thousands of suburban square feet?

At a level of emotion, I found the book very moving but I do question and would like to discuss the narrative necessity of having had Henry’s son Mitt die (in a way that is never sufficiently explained). Is ethnic suburban affluence itself murderous?

Let me know what you think, or what else about the book engaged your interest, in the comments below.

New York Fringe Festival Report: ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’

True False Theater Christopher Travlos in “Slaughterhouse-Five.”

Reviews of shows from the New York International Fringe Festival will appear on ArtsBeat through the festival’s close on Aug. 25. For more information, go to fringenyc.org.

Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five” may be too well known and too beloved for a stage adaptation of it to be judged on its own merits. At the opening performance of True False Theater’s version, the packed house was greeting scenes with the kind of laughter that signifies recognition of a friend rather than response to a joke.

Daria Tavana’s play leaves a lot of the novel’s threads (including pivotal ones) dangling, rather than completing the story lines, but the audience didn’t seem to care. It was enough to hear the sci-fi sound effect signifying that Billy Pilgrim (Jamie Effros), Vonnegut’s World War II soldier, was time traveling again, or to revel in the response of the people of Tralfamadore, the planet where Billy is beamed to learn a version of the meaning of life.

The play is cleverly staged and decently acted, with most of the novel’s significant characters represented if not fully realized. Anni Weisband is Montana Wildhack, the pornographic movie star who becomes Billy’s mate on Tralfamadore, and Rachel Berger is Valencia, his earthly wife.

The novel may be at heart an exploration of what would today be called post-traumatic stress syndrome, and this excerpted version hints at that, but it doesn’t have any of the power of Vonnegut’s book, seeming instead like merely a homage to it.

“Slaughterhouse-Five” continues through Aug. 20 at the Celebration of Whimsy, 21 Clinton Street, Lower East Side.

Conan the Barbarian Rampages Into Prestigious Archive

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Great Story, Compelling and Rich: ‘Anchorman’ Ron Burgundy to Write Memoir

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New Novel by Dave Eggers Due in October

Dave Eggers is perfecting the art of sneaking onto bookshelves. His new novel, “The Circle,” will be published in October, according to the Web site of his publisher Alfred A. Knopf. Like his last book, “A Hologram for the King,” which was published less than a month after its existence was announced, “The Circle” will appear without much lead time.

According to Knopf’s site, the novel’s protagonist is a woman named Mae Holland who is hired to work for the Circle, “the world’s most powerful Internet company.” The organization, “run out of a sprawling California campus, links users’ personal e-mails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company’s modernity and activity.”

As you might guess from that setup, Mae doesn’t live happily ever after. Things go wrong, and the book becomes a “novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge.”

New Novel by Dave Eggers Due in October

Dave Eggers is perfecting the art of sneaking onto bookshelves. His new novel, “The Circle,” will be published in October, according to the Web site of his publisher Alfred A. Knopf. Like his last book, “A Hologram for the King,” which was published less than a month after its existence was announced, “The Circle” will appear without much lead time.

According to Knopf’s site, the novel’s protagonist is a woman named Mae Holland who is hired to work for the Circle, “the world’s most powerful Internet company.” The organization, “run out of a sprawling California campus, links users’ personal e-mails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company’s modernity and activity.”

As you might guess from that setup, Mae doesn’t live happily ever after. Things go wrong, and the book becomes a “novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge.”

Gift Bolsters Denver Museum’s Collection of Western American Art

The Denver Art Museum, which has been steadily establishing itself as a center for Western American art for more than a decade, announced that it would receive the bulk of one of the most important private collections of 19th- and 20th-century Western art in private hands.

The collection, 50 paintings and sculptures amassed by Henry Roath, a retired Denver lawyer and banker, includes significant works by Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Moran, Frederic Remington and Ernest L. Blumenschein and is particularly strong in works by the Taos Society of Artists, founded by Blumenschein and others in New Mexico in 1915.

“It’s one of the most important gifts in the history of the museum,” said Thomas Brent Smith, director of the Petrie Institute of Western American Art, founded at the museum in 2001 for the study and exhibition of Western art. The donation will give the museum its first major painting by Moran and will complement a Bierstadt already in the collection. The gift also adds two important casts of Remington’s “Bronco Buster” to go along with a work already in the collection, “The Cheyenne,” considered one of his masterpieces.

More than 60 pieces from the Roath collection have been on long-term loan to the museum since late 2011. Mr. Roath, who will also give the museum $500,000 to establish a fund for acquisitions, began collecting four decades ago and became serious in the 1990s, focusing his attention on Western art. “As my finances got better, my collection got better,” he said in a recent interview. But after many years with the paintings and bronzes, he said, “it seemed that artwork of that quality should be seen by people other than just its owners.”

Gift Bolsters Denver Museum’s Collection of Western American Art

The Denver Art Museum, which has been steadily establishing itself as a center for Western American art for more than a decade, announced that it would receive the bulk of one of the most important private collections of 19th- and 20th-century Western art in private hands.

The collection, 50 paintings and sculptures amassed by Henry Roath, a retired Denver lawyer and banker, includes significant works by Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Moran, Frederic Remington and Ernest L. Blumenschein and is particularly strong in works by the Taos Society of Artists, founded by Blumenschein and others in New Mexico in 1915.

“It’s one of the most important gifts in the history of the museum,” said Thomas Brent Smith, director of the Petrie Institute of Western American Art, founded at the museum in 2001 for the study and exhibition of Western art. The donation will give the museum its first major painting by Moran and will complement a Bierstadt already in the collection. The gift also adds two important casts of Remington’s “Bronco Buster” to go along with a work already in the collection, “The Cheyenne,” considered one of his masterpieces.

More than 60 pieces from the Roath collection have been on long-term loan to the museum since late 2011. Mr. Roath, who will also give the museum $500,000 to establish a fund for acquisitions, began collecting four decades ago and became serious in the 1990s, focusing his attention on Western art. “As my finances got better, my collection got better,” he said in a recent interview. But after many years with the paintings and bronzes, he said, “it seemed that artwork of that quality should be seen by people other than just its owners.”

Pain and Gain: ’50 Shades’ Author Tops Earnings List

The publishing phenomenon “Fifty Shades of Grey” has made its author, E. L. James the No. 1 writer in the world in terms of earnings over the last year with an estimated $95 million, according to an annual list released by Forbes of the top-earning book writers.

The list is based on sales data, published figures and information from industry sources compiled by Forbes from June 2012 to June 2013. The presence of Ms. James comes as no surprise, as the “Fifty Shades” trilogy sold more than 70 million copies worldwide from March to December 2012 alone, but it is rare to see a new writer come out of nowhere to reach No. 1 in her first year.

The rest of the list consists of established authors like the prolific James Patterson, who held the top spot last year, and was second this time with $91 million earned. Suzanne Collins finished third with $55 million thanks to the sales of her “Hunger Games” trilogy. Bill O’Reilly, who wrote “Killing Lincoln” and “Killing Kennedy” with Martin Dugard in between his television show hosting duties, came in fourth at $28 million. Danielle Steel rounded out the top five with $26 million earned.

New York Fringe Festival Report: ‘Perceval’

Reviews of shows from the New York International Fringe Festival will appear on ArtsBeat through the festival’s close on Aug. 25. For more information, go to fringenyc.org.

Poor Perceval apparently didn’t have as good a publicist as some other Knights of the Round Table did, but he gets title-character treatment from a troupe called the Immediate Family in this spunky, stripped-down show.

In “Perceval,” four actors and a one-woman orchestra serve up the tale, a fast-moving sampling of various treatments that Perceval’s pursuit of the Holy Grail has been given over the centuries. (Haas Regen, who plays the better known Galahad in the show, wrote the adaptation.)

Michael Propster’s Perceval is funny and likable, and Gillian Williams is downright spooky as Kundry, the wild-eyed woman who flits in and out of the story. Elizabeth King-Hall propels it all along in multiple roles, the best of which is an overenthusiastic modern-day scholar who breaks the fourth wall now and again to explain the various sourcing â€" literature, Wagnerian opera, films â€" and the action.

If anything, the show needs a little more of Ms. King-Hall’s guidance; things go by pretty quickly, and keeping up is a challenge. But it’s smart, droll theater on a shoestring, and Mackenzie Shivers’s eclectic musical accompaniment is a nice touch.

“Perceval” continues through Aug. 25 at the Kraine Theater, 85 East Fourth Street, East Village.

The Ad Campaign: Quinn Supporter’s Testimonial of Her Effectiveness

First aired: August 13, 2013

Produced by: SKDKnickerbocker and Mark Guma Communications

For: Christine C. Quinn

In her second major advertisement of the campaign, Christine C. Quinn yields the spotlight to Levia Preito, a Long Island woman whose son, Manny Lanza, died at 24 years old from a brain condition after a Manhattan hospital delayed surgery when he had no insurance. Ms. Preito narrates her emotional story, telling of how Ms. Quinn, as City Council speaker, took steps to help prevent similar situations.

Fact-Check

0:11

“Because of her, Manny became Manny’s Law.”

Hospitals cannot turn away patients simply because they lack insurance, and Mr. Lanza’s death prompted investigations into why his family had apparently been misinformed by doctors at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital. When Ms. Quinn became Council speaker in 2006, she introduced a bill to require hospitals to tell patients about financial aid programs and government assistance that can help pay for care.

0:20

“She refused to let another family suffer.”

The Council bill never passed; instead, the State Legislature, including Ms. Quinn’s close ally, Senator Thomas K. Duane, took up the cause and passed a similar measure in that year’s budget. Ms. Quinn, joined by other council members, later conducted a follow-up investigation to ensure compliance at city hospitals, including the posting of signs about financial assistance in languages other than English.

Scorecard

Ms. Quinn is intent on emphasizing her record as Council speaker, an attempt at contrast with rivals who she argues are all talk, no walk. (Ms. Quinn is, of course, selective about what she highlights, omitting more controversial parts of her tenure, like overturning the city’s term limits law.) The testimony of Ms. Preito, who tears up toward the end as she recalls Ms. Quinn’s support, is an emotionally affecting way for the Quinn campaign to convey a message of effectiveness without requiring its candidate to preen about her accomplishments. The focus on health care is also notable, since opponents have attacked Ms. Quinn over the closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan.

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The Ad Campaign: Thompson Emphasizes His Roots

First aired: August 13, 2013

Produced by: The Campaign Group

For: William C. Thompson Jr.

Four years after losing a closer-than-expected election to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, William C. Thompson Jr., a former comptroller, is back on the air with two commercials as he tries to improve his position in a crowded Democratic primary. Both 30-second commercials are heavily biographical and feature Mr. Thompson speaking directly to the camera. The more vivid of the two ads is titled “Believe.”

Fact-Check

0:06

“I grew up in Brooklyn. My father was a judge. My mother a teacher. We had good public schools, good jobs. That’s the New York we believe in.”

A smiling Mr. Thompson, wearing a suit and tie, tries to project his sunniest and most homespun persona. Backed by a peppy, jazz-infused score, Mr. Thompson talks about his grandparents, both Caribbean immigrants. He is filmed standing in front of the Bedford-Stuyvesant row house in which he grew up, emphasizing his Brooklyn roots even though he now lives in Manhattan. His rose-tinted description of his formative years overlooks the fact that in the mid-1970s, when Mr. Thompson was entering the job market, the city was in the throes of a fiscal crisis, with double-digit unemployment rates, and the schools were generally viewed as a disaster.

0:15

“More affordable. Safer streets. Better schools in every neighborhood. I’m Bill Thompson. I’ll always remember where I come from and who I’m standing up for.”

Mr. Thompson pledges to do what every candidate â€" Democrat or Republican â€" has focused on if elected: make the city more affordable and safer, and improve the schools. In a sign of his institutional support, he is seen walking with firefighters outside a firehouse, and talking with New Yorkers on the street, while a graphic notes that he has been endorsed by firefighters, Democratic leaders and teachers. The ad concludes with a smiling Mr. Thompson surrounded by his family: his father, a former judge; his wife; and his adult daughter.

Scorecard

Mr. Thompson’s mission is simple here: Even though voters may not remember him much from his 2009 run, he wants them to know that he is back. By mentioning his Caribbean roots, he is indirectly highlighting the fact that he is the only black candidate in the mayor’s race, which could be a plus among black and Hispanic voters. He speaks more slowly than the other candidates who have aired ads, as if to reinforce his message that he is the calm, deliberate adult in the field.

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Lady Gaga Releases a New Song After It Leaks Online

Lady Gaga has released the first single off her forthcoming album a week early because the song was circulating on the Internet, the BBC reports.

The song, “Applause,” a dance track, was originally scheduled to be released on Aug. 19, but the singer, declaring on Twitter that a “pop music emergency is underway,” gave the track to radio stations in the United States on Monday and hours later began selling it on iTunes. The decision came after low-quality versions of the song popped up on the Web on Saturday.

Music industry executives predict that the song will rack up well over 400,000 digital sales in its first week, Billboard reports. Katy Perry’s new single, “Roar,” also released this week, is expected to break that threshold as well.

Leaks are a fact of life for modern pop stars, and it is rare for a single or an album to remain completely under wraps until its release date. Beyonce, Katy Perry and Jay Z have all seen new songs leak online this year before they were ready to put them out.

“Applause” is the first single to be released from Lady Gaga’s new collection,”Artpop,” which will go on sale in November. Her last studio album was “Born This Way,” from 2011.

Aug. 13: Where the Candidates Are Today

Planned events for the mayoral candidates, according to the campaigns and organizations they are affiliated with. Times are listed as scheduled but frequently change.

Joseph Burgess and Nicholas Wells contributed reporting.

Event information is listed as provided at the time of publication. Details for many of Ms. Quinn events are not released for publication.Maps of all campaign events since April »

Events by candidate

Albanese

Carrión

Catsimatidis

De Blasio

Lhota

Liu

McDonald

Thompson

Weiner

Group event

John A. Catsimatidis
Republican

8 a.m.
Attends newsmaker breakfast featuring Patrick Foye, executive director of the Port Authority. Event hosted by publication that produces City & State, at 7 World Trade Center.

2:30 p.m.
Participates in the Human Service Council’s mayoral candidates meeting, at the UJA-Federation of New York building on East 59th Street.

6 p.m.
Attends an invitation-only “friend-raiser,” at a private residence on Yates Avenue in the Bronx.

7:15 p.m.
Attends dinner hosted by the Queens Jewish Community Council, at the Flushing Meadows Jewish Center in Queens.

8:30 p.m.
Attends Jay Black’s concert at the Staten Island Hilton Garden Inn on Staten Island.

10 p.m.
Greets the audience leaving a performance of “The Little Flower,” a one-man play about Fiorello La Guardia, at the Di Capo Theater on the Upper East Side. Mr. Catsimatidis said in an interview with Larry King earlier this year that he aspired “to be a 21st-century La Guardia.”

Bill de Blasio
Democrat

11 a.m.
Accepts endorsement of the Rev. Michael A. Walrond, Jr., the seventh Senior Pastor of the First Corinthian Baptist Church in West Harlem and a board member of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. Announcement moved due to rain to the overhang outside the church on 1912 Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Boulevard.

7 p.m.
Participates, as one of five hand-picked Democrats allowed a seat at this prime-time televised debate, hosted by the League of Women Voters, The Daily News, Univision 149 and WABC, at the studio’s offices in Lincoln Center. Live event expected to draw 400,000 viewers.

John C. Liu
Democrat

7 a.m.
Greets morning commuters, at the East 180th Street subway station on Morris Park Avenue in the Bronx.

9:15 a.m.
Participates in the New York Real Estate Chamber’s Democratic forum, discussing efforts to assist businesses owned by minority residents, at MIST’s environmentally friendly space in West Harlem.

10:30 a.m.
Visits with senior citizens, at the Hanac JVL-Dimotsis-Vallone Senior Center on Hoyt Avenue South in Queens.

11:15 a.m.
Visits Reality House, a substance abuse treatment center, in Astoria.

12 p.m.
Visits with senior citizens at the Hanac Ravenswood Senior Center, on 12th Street in Queens.

12:30 p.m.
Tours small businesses as a guest of the 30th Avenue Business Association, from 37th Street to 31st Street, in Queens.

5 p.m.
Greets evening commuters, at the 72nd Street subway station on the Upper West Side.

7 p.m.
Participates, as one of five hand-picked Democrats allowed a seat at this prime-time televised debate, hosted by the League of Women Voters, The Daily News, Univision 149 and WABC, at the studio’s offices in Lincoln Center. Live event expected to draw 400,000 viewers.

Joseph J. Lhota
Republican

8 a.m.
Meets privately with the New York Landmarks Conservancy, at its offices on Whitehall Street.

11 a.m.
Visits the Middle Village Adult Center, together with Craig Caruana, a candidate for City Council, on 75th Street in Queens.

6:45 p.m.
Speaks at a wine reception as part of a continuing mayoral candidate series hosted by The Common Good, a civics organization founded by Patricia Duff, at Paul Hastings Law Office on East 55th Street. Event is closed to the press and requires R.S.V.P.

Christine C. Quinn
Democrat

7 p.m.
Participates, as one of five hand-picked Democrats allowed a seat at this prime-time televised debate, hosted by the League of Women Voters, The Daily News, Univision 149 and WABC, at the studio’s offices in Lincoln Center. Live event expected to draw 400,000 viewers.

Some of Ms. Quinn’s events may not be shown because the campaign declines to release her advance schedule for publication.

William C. Thompson Jr.
Democrat

9:15 a.m.
Participates in the New York Real Estate Chamber’s Democratic forum, discussing efforts to assist businesses owned by minority residents, at MIST’s environmentally friendly space in West Harlem.

11 a.m.
Attends a brunch sponsored by the United Federation of Teachers and faith-based and community-based partners, at union headquarters at 52 Broadway.

7 p.m.
Participates, as one of five hand-picked Democrats allowed a seat at this prime-time televised debate, hosted by the League of Women Voters, The Daily News, Univision 149 and WABC, at the studio’s offices in Lincoln Center. Live event expected to draw 400,000 viewers.

Anthony D. Weiner
Democrat

9:15 a.m.
Participates in the New York Real Estate Chamber’s Democratic forum, discussing efforts to assist businesses owned by minority residents, at MIST’s environmentally friendly space in West Harlem.

11:30 a.m.
Visits with senior citizens, at the Leonard Covello Senior Center on East 109th Street.

7 p.m.
Participates, as one of five hand-picked Democrats allowed a seat at this prime-time televised debate, hosted by the League of Women Voters, The Daily News, Univision 149 and WABC, at the studio’s offices in Lincoln Center. Live event expected to draw 400,000 viewers.

Sal F. Albanese
Democrat

8 a.m.
Attends a breakfast event, discussing education policy with David Steiner, the dean of the Hunter School of Education, as part of CUNY’s Next Mayor Series, at Roosevelt House at Hunter College.

10:45 a.m.
Holds a news conference immediately following a mayoral forum hosted by the New York Real Estate Chamber, revealing ties between other mayoral candidates and real estate developers recently subpoenaed by the Moreland Act Commission, outside of MIST in Harlem.

6:30 p.m.
Greets concertgoers at the “Spin, Pop and Boom & The Amish Outlaws” concert, at the Shops at Atlas Park in Queens.

7 p.m.
Barred from participating in tonight’s televised debate by the event’s organizers despite the intercession of the editorial board at The New York Times, the candidate tries making the best of the situation and “live-tweets” his thoughts in time with the debate, via his Twitter feed, @SalAlbanese2013.

7:45 p.m.
Greets outdoor moviegoers who have come to see “Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted,” at Crocheron Park, in Queens.

Adolfo Carrión Jr.
Independent

5 p.m.
Greets voters in Co-Op City, beginning on Bartow Avenue, in the Bronx.

George T. McDonald
Republican

6:30 p.m.
Attends the Shakers and Stirrers N.Y.C. Business Mixer, hosted by the Networking for Professionals’ co-founder Amanda Nissman and initially listed for Monday, at O’Brien’s Irish Pub on West 46th Street.

Readers with information about events involving the mayoral candidates are invited to send details and suggestions for coverage to cowan@nytimes.com. You can also follow us on Twitter @cowannyt.

An Encounter During a Rainstorm

Dear Diary:

I was leaving my office in SoHo the evening of Aug, 1 when the rain began to pour down harder. Having no umbrella, I walked swiftly on Spring Street toward a block I saw mostly covered by scaffolding, joining the queue of unprepared New Yorkers who always huddle under construction to keep dry.

I had on a short skirt that exposed a large cut and bruise on my right knee, a souvenir from a painful sidewalk blunder earlier that week. From the corner of my eye, I caught a man about 30 years old, with blond facial hair and a trim blazer, studying my leg.

He interrupted the quiet of the dry pocket of sidewalk.

“Battle wound?” he asked. I looked up.

“You’re scrappy,” he continued. He smirked at me, his eyes crinkling. I looked him in the eye and smiled back.

There is only so long we can stay inside the shell of these moments, sheltered by awnings and overhangings and comfortable silences, waiting on a storm we don’t know will let up. Without looking back, I stepped into the thick curtain of rain and limped up Broadway.

Read all recent entries and our updated submissions guidelines. Reach us via e-mail diary@nytimes.com or follow @NYTMetro on Twitter using the hashtag #MetDiary.

In Performance: Zachary Levi and Krysta Rodriguez of ‘First Date’

In the new Broadway musical “First Date,” Zachary Levi plays Aaron, an awkward but cute finance guy who is set up on a blind date with Casey, a pretty, dark-edged art chick played by Krysta Rodriguez. In the number “First Impressions,” they size each other up right after meeting. “First Date,” written by Austin Winsberg (book) and Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner (music and lyrics), is at the Longacre Theater.

Recent videos in this series include the playwright Young Jean Lee in a scene from her show “We’re Gonna Die,” at the Claire Tow Theater, and Sala Iwamatsu and the puppeteer Veronica J. Kuehn (as Kate Monster) singing the number “The More You Ruv Someone” from “Avenue Q,” at New World Stages.

Coming soon: a musical number from the new Broadway musical “Soul Doctor.”

New York Today: Flood Watch

Demetrius Freeman/The New York Times Don’t leave home without one.

Updated 6:57 a.m. | It will rain today - possibly a whole lot.

The New York City region is under a flash-flood watch until 6 p.m., with more than an inch of rain forecast, some of it likely coming in bursts accompanied by gusty winds.

Localized amounts over 3 inches are possible. The high will be near 80.

The rain should start during the morning rush, get heavy by lunchtime, taper by nightfall and clear out around midnight, the National Weather Service says.

Wednesday should be sunny.

But for today, prepare to take cover. Bring two umbrellas, or one decent one.

Here’s what else you need to know for Tuesday.

TRANSIT & TRAFFIC

- Mass Transit [6:55] Subway delays on the 2 and 3 train. Click for latest M.T.A. status.

- Roads [6:55] O.K. so far. Click for traffic map or radio report on the 1s.

Alternate-side parking is in effect.

COMING UP TODAY

- Democratic mayoral candidates face off in a 7 p.m. debate telecast live online and on Channels 7 and 41.

- More from the campaign trail: a mayoral forum on helping minority-owned businesses, sponsored by the New York Real Estate Chamber. Bill de Blasio is on MSNBC at 1:30 p.m. William C. Thompson Jr. unveils his first TV ad.

- Opening of the revamped and - for the first time, round-the-clock - Aqueduct Raceway subway station on the A line, which will better serve Resorts World casino patrons.

- Primary Day in New Jersey in the special election to fill the seat of the late Senator Frank R. Lautenberg. Cory Booker leads the polls on the Democratic side.

- Make those reservations now: Restaurant Week ends Friday.

- Free ice pops all over town, dispensed by Rockettes no less, from a double-decker bus and a food truck, to promote the Radio City Christmas show. Click for schedule. [Free]

- Bluegrass with Michael Daves and other pickers at the Hudson Square Music and Wine festival’s “Hot Strings Fest” at City Winery in SoHo. 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. [Free]

IN THE NEWS

- The Department of Education is asking the state to waive a regulation that requires public schools to employ a librarian. [NY1]

- The world’s most valuable coin was moved Monday from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to the New-York Historical Society. [New York Times]

- Maybe think twice before plugging in your phone at a public charging station. [Daily News]

- Two new ice rinks are coming to Brooklyn. [Brooklyn Paper]

- Anthony D. Weiner says the campaign is unfolding exactly as he expected. [New York Times]

- The New York Times editorial page called a federal judge’s stop-and-frisk ruling against the city trenchant. The New York Post called it “Death Wish, the Sequel.”

- Yanks beat Angels 2-1. Mets fall to Dodgers 4-2.

AND FINALLY…

Last Wednesday, naturalists from the city, state and federal government were out clearing invasive species on the beach in the Rockaways when they found a low plant with rounded reddish-green spinachy-looking leaves and little yellow flowers. They stopped, they consulted, they probably high-fived.

The plant was no invasive. It was sea beach amaranth, a once-abundant Northeastern species that is now on the federal threatened list. (Click to see photo.)

“The sea beach amaranth needs just the right amount of disturbance,” Mike Feller, the city parks department’s chief naturalist said. “Too well-manicured a beach is not enough, too wild a beach is too much.”

The plant, Amaranthus pumilus, grows only in open sandy portions of ocean beaches between the high tide line and the start of the dune.

Amaranth is familiar to cereal-box readers as the mystic grain of the Aztecs. But if you see this amaranth, please don’t eat it.

Nicole Higgins DeSmet contributed reporting.

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