Actually, if you haven't gotten tickets for Richard Gere & Carey Lowell reading a selection of poems and essays by writers in the American prison system, you're probably out of luck, as that New School event has been sold out for a while. The reading is part of a two-day conference called "Punishment: The U.S. Record," co-sponsored by Social Research to examine "the foundations of American punishment, the effects of current punishment practices, and alternatives to our incarceration-driven state."

So if you can't get into that, maybe you can work your way uptown to the 92nd St. Y's annex event spot at the Steinhardt Building (35 W. 67th), where former Nerve.com "sexperts" Em & Lo, having spun themselves off into their own successful franchise, will be fielding questions from the audience. For a second there, I thought this was going to be at the actual 92Y, and given the audiences I usually see when I go to events there, I imagined some little old lady raising her hand and asking, "Does your mother know you do this sort of thing?" Either that or trying to play matchmaker for their grandsons.