Dancer Injured During ‘Spider-Man’ Performance

Daniel Curry, a dancer in the Broadway musical “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” was seriously injured during Thursday night’s performance when part of his leg was caught in a piece of the show’s technically elaborate equipment, according to two members of the production team.

One audience member posted on Facebook that part of the performer’s leg was caught in a trap door and that workmen had to saw into the stage to free him. The performer, who played one of the nine “Spider-Man” dancers in the show, was freed quickly and taken to the hospital, according to the two members of the “Spider-Man” team, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized by the producers to divulge details.

Rick Miramontez, a spokesman for the show, said he did not have details about the severity of the injury or its cause, nor would he confirm the name of the actor because his family had not been notified.

The accident happened soon after the show’s second act had begun. The performance was halted, then canceled, and the Foxwoods Theater emptied.

The two members of the production team said they believed that either computerized equipment had malfunctioned or human error was to blame. A recent performance was canceled, just before it was to begin, because of problems with the computerized automation that controls the show’s massive set and special effects, the most extensive on Broadway.

“Spider-Man” was plagued by injuries during the first months of the show’s run, in late 2010 and early 2011. In December 2010 one performer, Christopher Tierney, fell more than 20 feet from a stage platform into the basement and sustained life-threatening injuries. An improperly attached safety tether contributed to his accident. Mr. Tierney recovered and returned to the show.

Since opening in June 2011, “Spider-Man” dancers and actors have had the usual share of minor injuries that are typical in Broadway musicals, but no severe accidents.

A Blast of Gunpowder, With a Whiff of Toast

Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times Rangers from the National Park Service fired a replica cannon on Thursday at the Governors Island National Monument.

Sarah Melo listened as Michael Shaver, the supervisory park ranger at the Governors Island National Monument, explained what to expect when he gave the order to fire a replica of an 1841 cannon.

“If you don’t like loud noises or if you have a hearing aid and don’t want it messed up,” he said, “the word you need to know is ‘ready.’” The “ready” would come before the “fire,” he said, and there would be no “aim.”

“You will be tested,” he added. “If you fail, you will not hear for a while.”

Sarah, who is 12 and will attend Hunter College High School next month, passed.

For a few moments at a cannon-firing demonstration on Governors Island on Thursday, fingers were jammed into ears the moment Mr. Shaver said “ready.” There were some fingers that were not jammed into ears, mainly because they were holding cellphone cameras and waiting for the puff of white smoke. And, of course, the noise.

When it thundered across the green lawn, it brought to mind a line from the 1987 Woody Allen movie “Radio Days.” Sally White, the Broadway starlet played by Mia Farrow, struggled to lose her Noo Yawk accent by saying this tongue-twister: “Hark! I hear the cannons roar. Is it the king approaching?”

People have heard the cannons roar since Mr. Shaver began the weekly demonstrations in June. “I thought, I’m going to mess up half of Lower Manhattan,” he said. “I know good and well that people are hearing it somewhere.”

Sure enough, a couple of weeks ago, a man attending a demonstration told Mr. Shaver: “I had heard it. I had wondered what it was.”

But the cannon’s roar was not all that people heard. “I set off my boss’s car alarm the other day,” Mr. Shaver said. “Twice.”

He said the cannon had a range of 1,500 yards. “In New York-speak, the distance between two Starbucks,” Mr. Shaver said.

Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times A Civil War demonstrator held up a six-pound cannonball. Governors Island served as a Union arsenal during that conflict.

In the days when the Army rode on horseback, the ammunition was made of iron. For the demonstrations, Mr. Shaver said, “the only things coming out of that gun are smoke, fire and a slice and a half of whole wheat bread.”

Sarah, who said the smoke smelled like toast, asked why.

A round of ammunition is slightly smaller than the inside of the barrel, Mr. Shaver said, so a filler is necessary to keep the round from rolling over as it is being shot out. He said that some re-enactors tamp peat moss on the ammunition, but he had discovered that bread served the same purpose.

Sarah’s father, Raul, a tenor who has toured with the Metropolitan Opera and has appeared on “A Prairie Home Companion” with Garrison Keillor, asked why Mr. Shaver did not not use Twinkies or Ho Hos.

“My staff eats healthy,” Mr. Shaver said. “That’s the stale bread that was left.”

Governors Island was an Army post from 1755 to 1966. It was home to Fort Jay and Castle Williams, built to prevent enemies from seizing control of New York Harbor, as the British had during the American Revolution. And it was a crucial Union arsenal during the Civil War where shipments of cannons arrived from weapons manufacturers and were sent off to battle. Leslie Koch, the president of the Trust for Governors Island, the group set up by the Bloomberg administration to oversee the island after the city took control of it, said that Governors Island had housed Confederate prisoners â€" officers at Fort Jay, enlisted men at Castle Williams â€" and Union recruits lodged there before they were sent to the front lines.

Apparently, dozens of cannonballs were left behind after the arsenal closed and the military shipped out. A 450-pounder surfaced in February 2012 by the sea wall at the dock where ferries from Manhattan come in. Construction workers were digging in the water, and soon the bomb squad was on the scene. The verdict was that it was not explosive.

“The theory is in World War II, a cannonball rolled down the hill and landed behind the sea wall,” Ms. Koch said. “Or maybe some of the military’s children were playing with it.”

There were three firings on Thursday, and after the smoke had cleared and the crowd had gone on to see Fort Jay and Castle Williams, the cannon was hitched to a pickup truck and driven into Fort Jay. A National Park Service employee, Noah Lumsden, was at the wheel.

“It’s a lot easier than doing it by hand,” Mr. Lumsden said.

New York Fringe Festival Report: ‘Carol and Cotton’

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.

Riffs on pop culture have been a steady part of New York’s fringe festival from the beginning, but so has straightforward real-life tragedy. “38 Witnessed Her Death, I Witnessed Her Love” was a heartfelt tribute to Kitty Genovese in 2009, and the airplane-in-distress drama “Charlie Victor Romeo” had some of its earliest performances at the event.

James Vculek’s spare, sure-footed drama “Carol and Cotton” fits solidly in this mode, unspooling the true story of a 1963 murder in St. Paul, Minn., with a minimum of histrionics. The brutal facts speak for themselves.

Two actors, Catherine Johnson Justice and Steve Swere, tackle six characters between them, but Mr. Vculek (who also directs) begins and ends the play with Carol Thompson, a chipper mother of four who will soon stagger from her suburban home covered in blood, a knife blade lodged in her neck.

The tawdry events leading up to this horrendous crime, which became known in Minnesota as “the crime of the century,” are parceled out bit by bit. A convoluted murder plot became even more complicated: The man hired to do the murder ended up outsourcing the job to a drunk whose frantic efforts would include shooting, drowning, bludgeoning and finally stabbing the woman.

Mr. Swere excels as Carol’s officious husband, T. Eugene “Cotton” Thompson, as well as a smarmy colleague of his and the investigator assigned to the murder. Ms. Justice does what she can with the play’s only poorly written role, a dippy “secretary” who can’t remember whether M or N comes first, but her stirring, deeply sad take on Carol more than makes up for it.

Like Cotton’s browline eyeglasses, “Carol and Cotton” eschews current fashions for a no-frills style that has never stopped working.

“Carol and Cotton” continues through Aug. 15 at the Kraine Theater, 85 East Fourth Street, East Village.

Shunning One Museum, Artist Heads to Another

The California artist Ed Ruscha, who resigned from the board of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, last year along with other artists to protest the institution’s leadership, has packed his trustee bags and headed north.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art announced Thursday that Mr. Ruscha (pronounced roo-SHAY), who has had a long relationship with the museum, would take the one spot on its board reserved for an artist, for a term of three years. Mr. Ruscha, 75, becomes the fourth artist to serve as a trustee after the painter Robert Bechtle, the photographer Larry Sultan and the designer Yves Béhar.

The San Francisco museum is one of the few institutions in the world to have a complete collection of Mr. Ruscha’s highly influential artist books, which he began making in the 1960s, as well as paintings and other works by him. The museum also gave Mr. Ruscha his first retrospective at a public institution, in 1982.

Neal Benezra, the director of the museum, which is in the midst of a major renovation and expansion project and scheduled to reopen in 2016, said he believed Mr. Ruscha’s participation would “be invaluable as we dramatically expand to become an international showcase for the best in contemporary culture.”

New York Fringe Festival Report: ‘Bully’

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.

The initial sight of Lee J. Kaplan exercising furiously as the audience files into “Bully” can give a misleading impression. Is this chiseled young man the title character?

Hardly. Think of Mr. Kaplan today as the “After” picture in those old comic-book ads with the 98-pound weakling getting sand kicked in his face. Rarely will you see a performer as eager to dive into a role, let alone a role - that of his actual, cowering, tic-ridden 12-year-old self - that most of us wouldn’t revisit with a gun to our head.

“Bully,” which is directed by Padraic Lillis, can best be imagined as the school assembly to end all school assemblies. Mr. Kaplan attacks the inspirational material with a delivery designed to get even the most recalcitrant students out of their seats and ready for battle. He sings “La Bamba”! He jumps rope! He shadowboxes! He imitates Austin Powers and Jimmy Stewart and both Hans and Franz! (Remember them? The “Saturday Night Live” bodybuilders? If not, Mr. Kaplan is happy to educate you.) Best of, he prevails over the bullies!

Chunks of “Bully” come verbatim from Mr. Kaplan’s sixth-grade journal entries, complete with blown-up projections on a screen, which may give you a sense of the depth and complexity on display here. This is animated agitprop, pure and simple, its unassailable messages sugarcoated with ounces of sweat, pounds of goofy humor and tons of heart.

“Bully” continues through Aug. 21 at the Steve and Marie Sgouros Theater, 115 MacDougal Street, third floor, West Village.

New York Fringe Festival Report: ‘Bully’

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.

The initial sight of Lee J. Kaplan exercising furiously as the audience files into “Bully” can give a misleading impression. Is this chiseled young man the title character?

Hardly. Think of Mr. Kaplan today as the “After” picture in those old comic-book ads with the 98-pound weakling getting sand kicked in his face. Rarely will you see a performer as eager to dive into a role, let alone a role - that of his actual, cowering, tic-ridden 12-year-old self - that most of us wouldn’t revisit with a gun to our head.

“Bully,” which is directed by Padraic Lillis, can best be imagined as the school assembly to end all school assemblies. Mr. Kaplan attacks the inspirational material with a delivery designed to get even the most recalcitrant students out of their seats and ready for battle. He sings “La Bamba”! He jumps rope! He shadowboxes! He imitates Austin Powers and Jimmy Stewart and both Hans and Franz! (Remember them? The “Saturday Night Live” bodybuilders? If not, Mr. Kaplan is happy to educate you.) Best of, he prevails over the bullies!

Chunks of “Bully” come verbatim from Mr. Kaplan’s sixth-grade journal entries, complete with blown-up projections on a screen, which may give you a sense of the depth and complexity on display here. This is animated agitprop, pure and simple, its unassailable messages sugarcoated with ounces of sweat, pounds of goofy humor and tons of heart.

“Bully” continues through Aug. 21 at the Steve and Marie Sgouros Theater, 115 MacDougal Street, third floor, West Village.

Jasper Johns Assistant Charged with Stealing the Artist’s Work

Hans Namuth, Center for Creative Photography Copyright 1991 Hans Namuth Estate Jasper Johns, center, with his long-time assistant, James Meyer, right, and an unknown associate in 1989. Mr. Meyer has been charged with stealing and selling at least 22 works from his employer.

The long-time assistant of the Pop art master Jasper Johns was arrested on charges that he stole at least 22 works from his employer and sold them through an unnamed New York gallery for $6.5 million, falsely telling the dealer and buyers that Mr. Johns had given them to him as a present and that they would be in the official compendium of the artist’s work known as the catalogue raisonné.

The assistant, James Meyer, was alleged to have pocketed $3.4 million. Arraigned in a Hartford, Conn., courtroom, Mr. Meyer pleaded not guilty to charges of transporting goods and wire fraud, and was released on an unsecured $250,000 bond after his arrest on Wednesday. An assistant at Mr. Johns’s studio in Sharon said the artist had no comment on Mr. Meyer.

In the 27 years that Mr. Meyer worked for the artist, he answered the artist’s phone, stretched his canvases, bought his paintbrushes and even drew lines on his canvases.

During the time they sat together in Manhattan, St. Maarten and most recently in Sharon, Conn., Mr. Johns mentored his apprentice, teaching him how to construct a work of art, how to trace and re-use his drawings and how to make an encaustic painting using hot wax. “Most important,” Mr. Meyer once said, was that “Jasper has taught me to think about what I’m making before I make it.”

An artist himself, Mr. Meyer, 51, has talked about how lucky he was to find himself working with one of the greatest American artists of the 20th century. In an unpublished interview from the 1990s with the writer Matthew Rose, Mr. Meyer recounted how he made a cold call to Mr. John’s studio in 1984, when he was 22, and painting knockoffs of works by Van Gogh and Matisse at $6 an hour to hang on the walls of Beefsteak Charlie’s.

With his rèsumè and slides of his work in hand, Mr. Meyer said, “I put on a suit, too, and went over to Johns’ Houston Street studio - this large old bank building - tapped on the door.” He left some work behind.

He didn’t get through the front entrance, but when he returned the next day to retrieve his work, Mr. Johns himself opened the door and invited him in for coffee.

“Come back tomorrow and we’ll take it day by day,” Mr. Meyer remembered Mr. Johns saying. He said that he sometimes drew lines on Mr. Johns’ canvases, which the artist would later erase and redraw.

Mr. Johns, now 83, is probably best known for his collage and encaustic paintings of the American flag, one of which hangs in the fourth floor gallery of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Last year, the foundry owner, Brian Ramnarine, who created a wax cast of the mold for his famous 1960 metallic collage “Flag,” secretly used the artist’s original mold to make a bronze sculpture that he attributed to Mr. Johns and tried to sell for $11 million.

Citing Russian Anti-Gay Law, Miss Universe Co-Host Pulls Out of Pageant

Andy Cohen, the host of Bravo’s late-night talk show “Watch What Happens Live,” has declined to continue his co-hosting duties for a different event, the Miss Universe pageant, because due to the competition’s location in Russia and that country’s recent adoption of anti-gay laws.

According to a report on E! News online, Mr. Cohen told his Miss Universe co-host for the last two years, Guiliana Rancic, that he had dropped out of this year’s pageant because Russia’s “discriminatory policies make it unsafe for the gays who live there and gays coming to work or visit.” Mr. Cohen specifically mentioned a Russian law passed in June that allows police to arrest tourists and foreigners suspected of being gay or pro-gay and detain them for up to 14 days and added that he “didn’t feel right as a gay man stepping foot into Russia.” The event is scheduled to be held Nov. 9 at Crocus City Hall in Moscow.

An online petition has also been set up by Francesco Pascuzzi, a self-identified fan of the pageant, asking organizers to move it from Russia. So far it has received over 24,000 signatures. Representatives of the Miss Universe competition were not immediately available for comment and a new co-host has not been announced.

New York Fringe Festival Report: ‘Recipe for Success with Chef Michael Denardi’

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.

Don’t feel like using a sick day to wait in line for cronuts? Chef Michael Denardi might still have some of his muffnuts kicking around.

Scratch that: The muffnuts were discontinued due to a lack of demand. But there’s still plenty of hummustard and guaclava if you’re interested.

These foodstuffs don’t actually exist, thank heavens, but Chef Michael Denardi is a living, heavy-breathing, karate-kicking, grudge-holding, self-loathing, sweaty hot mess in the fitfully amusing “Recipe for Success With Chef Michael Denardi.” Written by and starring the actor Peter Grosz (“A Kid Like Jake”), who has some of Anthony Weiner’s ectomorph-with-an-edge intensity, this innocuous comedy takes aim at some admittedly large targets: TV cooking shows and the absurd wish to join their ranks.

The set is a long table filled with all the ingredients for Chef Michael Denardi’s wannabe signature dish, baked ziti burritos, plus a few stray items, including a yucca. (Chef Michael Denardi likes it for its similarity to a sword.) A little more than an hour later, these ingredients - including uncooked rigatoni - have found their way into a pot. Free samples are not offered at the end.

It’s all part of the chef’s attempt to get his own cooking show, one sprinkled with his own dubious life lessons. (“Take everything personally. That’s what makes you a person.”) Like seemingly every motivational speaker in pop culture, he is an insecure train wreck deep down, and “Recipe for Success” frequently risks a dip in momentum by reducing its star to the human equivalent of flop sweat.

Even if these bits and the occasional one-liner have a warmed-over quality, though, Mr. Grosz’s go-for-broke fanaticism could sell you almost anything. Except guaclava.

“Recipe for Success With Chef Michael Denardi” continues through Aug. 24 at SubCulture, 45 Bleecker Street, East Village.

New York Fringe Festival Report: ‘Recipe for Success with Chef Michael Denardi’

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.

Don’t feel like using a sick day to wait in line for cronuts? Chef Michael Denardi might still have some of his muffnuts kicking around.

Scratch that: The muffnuts were discontinued due to a lack of demand. But there’s still plenty of hummustard and guaclava if you’re interested.

These foodstuffs don’t actually exist, thank heavens, but Chef Michael Denardi is a living, heavy-breathing, karate-kicking, grudge-holding, self-loathing, sweaty hot mess in the fitfully amusing “Recipe for Success With Chef Michael Denardi.” Written by and starring the actor Peter Grosz (“A Kid Like Jake”), who has some of Anthony Weiner’s ectomorph-with-an-edge intensity, this innocuous comedy takes aim at some admittedly large targets: TV cooking shows and the absurd wish to join their ranks.

The set is a long table filled with all the ingredients for Chef Michael Denardi’s wannabe signature dish, baked ziti burritos, plus a few stray items, including a yucca. (Chef Michael Denardi likes it for its similarity to a sword.) A little more than an hour later, these ingredients - including uncooked rigatoni - have found their way into a pot. Free samples are not offered at the end.

It’s all part of the chef’s attempt to get his own cooking show, one sprinkled with his own dubious life lessons. (“Take everything personally. That’s what makes you a person.”) Like seemingly every motivational speaker in pop culture, he is an insecure train wreck deep down, and “Recipe for Success” frequently risks a dip in momentum by reducing its star to the human equivalent of flop sweat.

Even if these bits and the occasional one-liner have a warmed-over quality, though, Mr. Grosz’s go-for-broke fanaticism could sell you almost anything. Except guaclava.

“Recipe for Success With Chef Michael Denardi” continues through Aug. 24 at SubCulture, 45 Bleecker Street, East Village.

Aug. 15: 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

Quinn

Salgado

Thompson

Weiner

Group event

John A. Catsimatidis
Republican

9:20 a.m.
Attends a campaign “friend-raiser,” at Hunton and Williams, a law firm on Park Avenue.

1 p.m.
Drops in on a political fund-raiser for the benefit of the New York State Republican Assembly Campaign Committee that is being held in a private suite at Yankee Stadium during the Yankees’ game against the Angels. Candidate expects to stay for a few innings.

5:30 p.m.
Attends an invitation-only “friend-raiser,” at the Harvard Club on West 44th Street.

Bill de Blasio
Democrat

10 a.m.
Attends funeral service for Bill Lynch, the Democratic political consultant who is credited with helping David N. Dinkins become New York mayor in 1989, at Riverside Church in Manhattan.

1:30 p.m.
Hold another news conference on his plan to tax the wealthy in order to expand after school programs, outside Beacon Program on 420 East 12th St.

John C. Liu
Democrat

7 a.m.
Greets morning commuters at 148th Street subway stop, on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard in Harlem.

10 a.m.
Attends funeral service for Bill Lynch, the Democratic political consultant who is credited with helping David N. Dinkins become New York mayor in 1989, at Riverside Church in Manhattan.

6 p.m.
Outlines vision for New York City at the historic Apollo Theater in Harlem.

8:45 p.m.
Greets concertgoers at the Seaside Summer Concert Series, featuring Huey Lewis and the News, at West 21st Street and Surf Avenue in Coney Island.

Joseph J. Lhota
Republican

10 a.m.
Attends funeral service for Bill Lynch, the Democratic political consultant who is credited with helping David N. Dinkins become New York mayor in 1989, at Riverside Church in Manhattan.

12 p.m.
Greets voters in Union Square.

1:30 p.m.
Visits Martin Greenfield Clothiers, a bespoke clothier in Williamsburg, as part of his continuing small-business tour, in Brooklyn.

7:30 p.m.
Participates in the Queens Public Television Republican debate, at Queens Public Television on Kissena Boulevard in Flushing.

Christine C. Quinn
Democrat

7 a.m.
Speaks out, together with State Senator Brad Hoylman, against the beating of two gay men Wednesday morning, in an apparent bias attack, in Chelsea.

10 a.m.
Attends funeral service for Bill Lynch, the Democratic political consultant who is credited with helping David N. Dinkins become New York mayor in 1989, at Riverside Church in Manhattan.

12 p.m.
Tours Sharp Decisions, a new jobs training program for veterans and the long-term unemployed, with Robert Walsh, commissioner of the Department of Small Business Services, on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan.

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

10 a.m.
Attends funeral service for Bill Lynch, the Democratic political consultant who is credited with helping David N. Dinkins become New York mayor in 1989, at Riverside Church in Manhattan.

12:40 p.m.
Calls for creation of “Opportunity Medallions,” a financing initiative that would be aimed at giving drivers a chance of purchasing a medallion, at his campaign’s Brooklyn field office on Montgomery Street.

2:15 p.m.
Holds a conference call with reporters calling for free lunch for every New York City student at a time when Mayor Bloomberg has been seeking to increase price of school lunches 25 cents per meal, to $1.75 from $1.50.

5 p.m.
Meets with the tenant associations from N.Y.C. Housing Authority’s Lakeview and Taft Houses, at the United Methodist Church on Madison Avenue.

6:25 p.m.
Attends Representative Charles B. Rangel’s Community Leadership meeting, at the Young Women and Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Washington Heights and Inwood.

Anthony D. Weiner
Democrat

2:30 p.m.
Accompanied by his mother, Frances Weiner, a New York City public school teacher for 31 years, the candidate will return to Brooklyn Technical High School, his alma mater, to discuss proposals from his two “Keys to the City” policy books that can help city schools prepare for transition to the Common Core State Standards, as the latest in his “Big Thought Thursday” series. Location is 29 Fort Greene Place.

7:30 p.m.
Greets moviegoers before a screening of “North by Northwest,” at the Cunningham Park Movies Under the Stars series in Queens.

Sal F. Albanese
Democrat

7 a.m.
Greets morning commuters, along with his wife, Lorraine, and Kevin Peter Carroll, a district leader, at the 77th Street subway station in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

10 a.m.
Attends funeral service for Bill Lynch, the Democratic political consultant who is credited with helping David N. Dinkins become New York mayor in 1989, at Riverside Church in Manhattan.

1 p.m.
Greets shoppers and merchants along Lee Avenue, starting at Gottliebs, in South Williamsburg.

6 p.m.
Participates in the Queens Public Television Democrats debate, at Queens Public Television on Kissena Boulevard in Flushing.

Adolfo Carrión Jr.
Independent

10 a.m.
Attends funeral service for Bill Lynch, the Democratic political consultant who is credited with helping David N. Dinkins become New York mayor in 1989, at Riverside Church in Manhattan.

5:30 p.m.
Attends Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s Dominican heritage celebration at Gracie Mansion on East End Avenue.

George T. McDonald
Republican

7:30 p.m.
Participates in the Queens Public Television Republican debate, at Queens Public Television on Kissena Boulevard in Flushing.

Erick J. Salgado
Democrat

10 a.m.
Visits with diners, at the Cucaramacara Restaurant in Upper Manhattan.

11 a.m.
Attends weekly meeting of the Hispanic Ministers Association, hosted by State Senator Ruben Diaz.

3 p.m.
Continues to campaign jointly with State Senator Ruben Diaz from a caravan of trucks, in the the Bronx.

5:30 p.m.
Participates in the Queens Public Television Democrats debate, at Queens Public Television on Kissena Boulevard in Flushing.

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.

When Nature Calls a Bus Driver

Dear Diary:

On a recent visit to New York City, my cousin, a friend and I were on the northbound 103 bus on Third Avenue, when the female bus driver pulled to the curb at 27th Street, turned off the motor, stood up, walked to the door and announced, “I have to go to the bathroom; I’ll be right back.”

She stepped down to the sidewalk, locked the door and quickly walked down the street. The passengers sat in silence.

My cousin, a lifelong Manhattanite, said, “Boy, I never had THAT happen before.”

We sat and waited for her return; it was one of the days of 100-plus degree heat. We had no air, nor could we leave the bus.

I had checked my watch; she returned in eight minutes and, without a word or a nod, started the engine and proceeded north. The stunned passengers shook their heads in silence and disbelief.

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.

New York Today: Civic Duty

Eric Michael Johnson for The New York Times If you register by tomorrow, you can vote next month.

New York is often portrayed as the ultimate big-city Democratic bastion.

Yet when it comes to Gracie Mansion, we seem to have a wandering eye.

The city has not elected a Democratic mayor since 1989. That’s five straight elections (two for Rudolph W. Giuliani, three for Michael R. Bloomberg).

Political analysts suspect that the streak could be broken this year, in part because the city is becoming even more Democratic.

The number of Democrats has steadily increased â€" by 23 percent just since 1997, according to voter records. The Republican rolls have fallen â€" by 5 percent in that period.

Now, Democrats outnumber Republicans more than 6 to 1.

We bring this up because Friday is the last day for unregistered New Yorkers to register to vote and join a political party if they want to cast a ballot in the Sept. 10 primaries.

Several groups are holding last-minute registration drives.

In Brooklyn and Queens, the Masbia soup-kitchen network, which serves 600 people on Thursdays, is giving out a registration kit with every meal.

(If you’re already registered but not yet a member of a party or want to switch parties, you’re too late â€" that deadline was last October.)

You can register by mail (using this form), in person at a Board of Elections office, or online.

Here’s what you need to know for Thursday.

WEATHER

Another beautiful day, with a high of 79, lots of sun and a gentle breeze.

TRANSIT & TRAFFIC

- Mass Transit [6:00] O.K. so far. Click for latest M.T.A. status.

- Roads [6:00] O.K. so far. Click for traffic map or radio report on the 1s.

Alternate-side parking is suspended for the Feast of the Assumption.

COMING UP TODAY

- On the campaign trail: William C. Thompson Jr. will call for free lunch for every city student. Bill de Blasio will describe his plan to increase taxes on the wealthy to fund after-school programs.

- Joseph J. Lhota visits a bespoke clothier in Williamsburg. John C. Liu delivers his vision for the city in a speech at the Apollo Theater at 6 p.m.

- Candidates for public advocate debate at 6:30 p.m., live on NY1 and on WNYC radio.

- The mayor heads to Rockaway Beach, not to surf but to watch the start of sand-pumping operations.

- The funeral at Riverside Church for Bill Lynch, the political consultant behind the Democrats’ last mayoral victory (David N. Dinkins, 1989), will draw much of the city’s political class.

- The Ebony Hillbillies, who bill themselves as one of the last black string bands in the country, play at Alfred E. Smith Playground on the Lower East Side at 10:30 a.m. [Free]

- Free gelato and live music at Ciao Bella’s 30th anniversary party at the Old School on Mott Street in SoHo from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m.

- The heart of rock & roll is still doing something: Huey Lewis and the News play at Coney Island. West 21st Street and Surf Avenue. 7:30 p.m. [Free]

- Also on the oldies tour: Jimmy Buffet’s performance on the “Today” show this morning can be seen at Rockefeller Plaza. (8 a.m. but get there early). [Free]

- Outdoor movies: “Romeo + Juliet” (the 1996 Baz Luhrmann version) in Tompkins Square Park (dusk).“North by Northwest” at Cunningham Park in Queens (8 p.m.). [Free]

Nicole Higgins DeSmet contributed reporting.

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