The New York Observer

If you harbor childhood memories of Snow White and would prefer their innocence remains intact, avoid the Park Avenue Armory this summer. A few minutes inside “WS,” artist Paul McCarthy’s staggering new project, which opened there earlier today, will be enough to make you never look at Dopey the same way again.

If, however, the prospect of spelunking through the weirdest corners of Mr. McCarthy’s subconscious—a Boschian realm that lays bare the sinister side of fairy tales, subverts American domesticity with unhinged humor, and involves enough debauched sexuality to send any mental-health professional screaming from the room—appeals, get to the Drill Hall. Read More

In a statement provided to Betabeat, the powers that be at Kickstarter announced that they will not be taking down the project for Redditor Ken Hoinsky’s dating advice book, which contains unsettling suggestions for how to treat women, including “grab her hand and put it right on your dick.” The book, called Above the Game: A Guide to Getting Awesome With Women, far surpassed its Kickstarter funding goal and promises to compile much of the dating advice the prolific Mr. Hoinsky has published to Reddit over the years. Read More

Former Comptroller Bill Thompson’s mayoral campaign got its most significant boost to date this evening with an endorsement from the city’s powerful teachers’ union.

The endorsement, which was officially announced just before 6 p.m. following a vote by the union’s 3,400-member Delegate Assembly, will provide Mr. Thompson with the organizational muscle of the United Federation of Teachers, which boasts a sophisticated voter outreach operation, approximately 170,000 members across the five boroughs and millions of dollars to spend. Read More

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday that he will follow through on his threat to create a Moreland Commission to investigate state legislators after they failed to come to a deal on a proposed new public campaign financing system the governor has tried to sell as an anti-corruption bill.

“That is the direction I am planning to proceed,” Mr. Cuomo told reporters at a press conference in Albany this afternoon, as the legislative session winds to a close. Read More

First Tumblr, and now comes another sizable New York City exit. Turns out the whimsical MakerBot won’t be raising a round, after all, because the desktop 3D-printing startup is being acquired by publicly traded behemoth Stratasys, for $403 million in stock. (Of course, that’s just the initial value, based on today’s $84.60 closing price for shares of Stratasys stock.) Stakeholders qualify for additional performance-based earnouts, with an initial total value of $201 million. Read More

At a Democratic mayoral forum this morning focusing on New York City’s transportation policies, the candidates often agreed on many of the issues–stated support for bike lanes, for example–but starkly disagreed when it came to several topics, including school bus contracts.

Setting up the dispute, former Comptroller Bill Thompson, the leading candidate for the teachers’ union endorsement set to be announced later this afternoon, defended pricey school bus driver contracts and provisions that protect current employees. Read More

Update: Kickstarter has decided not to remove the project.

Are you a foreveralone munching on Cheetos in your mom’s basement, wondering how to get women to touch your penis? Good news: Ken Hoinsky, whom you might know as “TofuTofu” on Reddit, has drawn up a comprehensive dating guide to help teach guys everywhere how to “get awesome with women”–and also make creepy unwanted advances on them. Read More