There are some nights were you look at the schedule of things going on and think to yourself “oh yeh, this is why I live in New York”, and tonight is definitely one of those nights.

1.  The Rumpus turns a years old, asks HTMLGiant to help them celebrate.  Tao Lin, Rivka Galchen, Justin Taylor, Deb Olin Unferth, and Stephen Elliott at Broadway East, where Chinatown meets the Lower East Side. 171 East Broadway.

2. Jami Attenberg reads from her new book, The Melting Season, at the Tribeca Barnes and Noble.

3. Patti Smith and Sam Sheppard together at 92Y, Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street.

4. Cousins Ira and Philip Glass together at the Soho Apple store tonight.  Ira Glass explains whats going on at the This American Life site.

Ira here.  Philip Glass, the iconic composer of operas and film scores who—there’s no non-weird way to say this—is also my cousin, is doing a live performance at the Apple Store in Soho this Thursday, January 21st.  Apple is filming it and is going to offer the video on iTunes at some point, maybe that same day for all I know.

I’ve been asked to perform a piece that Allen Ginsberg used to perform with Philip, Ginsberg’s great Vietnam-era poem “Wichita Vortex Sutra.”  Philip set it to music years ago, and there are a few great recordings of them performing it together, which you are just a google search away from, or try this YouTube clip, and at this point by the way are we still supposed to capitalize Google when we use it as a verb or adjective?