The sun may go down at 5pm and the mercury in your thermometer may have disappeared, but put on a coat and get some color in your cheeks with our weekend recommendations.

Friday

Columbia Night at Lincoln Center
Events at various times; between West 62nd & 65th Streets and Columbus & Amsterdam Aves.
For ridiculously discounted prices, nab your CUArts ticket and check out all that Lincoln Center has to offer. Jazz, film, chamber music, and opera are all on the list.
Price: $20

Cave Canem Poetry Night
6pm, McNally Jackson Booksellers 52 Prince St (212.274.1160)
Cave Canem is an organization dedicated to cultivating African American poetic voices. Come listen to the participants of their latest workshop—"Braids, Cornrows, and the Gathering of Meaning"—read their work.
Price: Free!

In which three young gentlemen--NYU correspondent W.M. Akers and temporary Brits John Klopfer and Brendan Ballou--offer their tales of Thanksgiving out of sorts.

Isolation within the 116th St. gates may be hard to take, but think of the NYU students. Not all are able to leave the city during Thanksgiving and Winter break, and although we have our ways of dealing, social barriers are less effective when winter combines with skyscrapers to allow us only a few minutes of sun a day. Your correspondent is safe in Tennessee, writing in sight of a full cooked turkey and two pies, but while I've been listening to family bicker about gravy, a few close friends are braving the holiday away from their home's tryptophantastic bosom.

Several friends' families took the break as an excuse for a city vacation, and came up for a week of sightseeing and restaurant dining. One friend, a sophomore who lives in Green Point, hosted her mother for a lot of "walking around and cooking. We saw a movie, and tonight we went to see Rockefeller Center because [Mom] really wanted to, but when we got there there wasn't really anything exciting to do. We were going to go to the parade but found out you have to get a ticket in advance." For Thanksgiving lunch her roommate made "some weird Japanese fish dish" and then slurped a bottle and a half of wine. Bungled maintenance on the floor above led to the collapse of their bathroom ceiling, but they had a nice night anyway.

To pass holidays away from home seems unfortunate, but that's just turkey-lobby propaganda talking: it does have fringe benefits. A friend who couldn't get away from the cash register at the SoHo Apple store made two and a half times salary, and those I know who imported family got to enjoy several days of comped fine-dining. None of them will have to negotiate airports and subways on Sunday; none of them had to make small talk with forgettable cousins or high-school chums. To those not consoled by cash or food, I recommend Whole Foods stuffing and a fifth of Wild Turkey. A holiday could be worse.

Ah, Thanksgiving break, the time for turkey, family, pie, and untimely assigned papers. Surprisingly, Bwog has a family too, so posts may be a bit sparse for the next few days. But before we binge on pecan pie, in the vein of traditions, Bwog gives credit where it's due. Through a very long e-mail thread, Bwog has gathered a list of what our staffers are thankful for. It's a little long, at times convoluted, but it comes with all the best intentions.

My tuition

The extermination of the bedbugs on Schapiro 12
Claremont security guards
Barnard shuttle
Simon, the swipe desk guard in McBain

Not everyone had as wholesome Thanksgiving experience as our freshman columnist. Bwog nightlife correspondent Will Snider narrates the amalgamated stories of his visits home.

Picture it. You're back home on break and enjoying some leftover turkey when the telephone on the kitchen counter rings. Your mother picks it up and hands it to you, a forgotten landline with a nearly forgotten voice on the other end: it's Andy speaking in rapid fire, "Dude, my dad's out of the country for the weekend. Let's get some beer and call some people. I have some great weed. It's so good. It'll be so great. We're home."

You can't believe it. You're sixteen years old again and back in high school. You know what this night will be about: driving up and down Wisconsin Avenue, stopping at several hookah bars and an all-night McDonalds searching for friends. And you'll find them, but you might regret having made the effort. Endless nights of Marlborough Reds, Natty Lite, and poorly rolled joints would make anyone miss 1020.

Nightlife in Washington, D.C. is awful. It's depressingly awful. For adults it's all about the after work happy hour. For the underage it's the quest for an open house, which isn't hard to find when most of your friends' parents work for the IMF, so usually you're set.

This particular party boasts a desperate mix of high school kids and young college students, all pretending to not care about how warm the beer is. You spot a few girls you used to like, and after the freshman fifteen you might actually have a chance. But you've got a good buzz by now, and it doesn't seem worth the effort. They might start to ask you about college and life and how great things used to be. Fuck that.

In which Bwog's first-year correspondent, Dan D'Addario, sounds a somber tone as he reflects upon his first Thanksgiving homecoming.

Unlike most of my friends in the freshman class, I actually looked forward last week to returning home for Thanksgiving break. I had missed the John Jay turkey dinner for a vegan friend's birthday dinner at a Sri Lankan restaurant, and my body's tryptophan levels had dipped dangerously low. I began envisioning pumpkin pie even as I ate my Tasti-D-Lite, ready for a dessert not made with industrial byproducts.

I did miss home for reasons besides food. New York had begun to seem oppressive: I love it the city, but I needed a few days without hundreds of pages of Thucydides so that I could miss it. Others I've talked to felt the same way. My first day back went peacefully, marred only by a dispute over TV volume when my family chose to bond over college football and I chose to bond with a two-hour Madonna concert on the TV dowstairs.

By now, you're probably on your way to Tucson or Trenton, Tuscaloosa or Taiwan. Bwog is also busy this Thanksgiving, eating turkey and kvetching. So if you don't see so much activity on the site over the next few days, that's why.

But before we set off, we bring you a list of things we are thankful for this year, culled from Bwog staffers near and far. So, God bless us! Every one! Unless you're an atheist, in which case, we wish you a completely Godless Thanksgiving.


Flex
Nice Asian man at Pinnacle who doesn't sleep.
Pinnacle coffee. (extra milk and sugar)
Ham Del
second winds
The two days a week when the EC soda machines actually have soda
Lexis-Nexis
Free delivery
Four options for baklava within eight blocks
Cheap multipurpose fabric worn by Xavier
Gelatinous fruit slices
Extra buttons on the inside of coats
twinkle lights
Jay Orenduff
when it rains, Butler scaffolding

Dean of SEAS Zvi Galil, spam robot extraordinaire, strikes once more with an idiosyncratic personal e-mail before he leaves to take over the presidency of Tel Aviv University. Just another example of what we'll be missing...

Hi All,

SEAS is hot. (Don't hold it without gloves, you may get burnt.) We now have final numbers of Early Decision. Last year we had a record. This year's new record is 51% higher. This is beyond anyone's expectations. As for regular applications, we are "only" 40% higher than the number of last year at the same time. It is too early to predict the final number, as most applications arrive early January.

Every Thanksgiving I read the piece below, which is now 17 years old, and laugh again. Every few years I send it to the students. So if you have received it from me, it perhaps means that you have been here too long... Anyway, you can delete it as any other spam.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Dean Galil

Read more of his e-mail after the jump.

Eagle-eyed Bwog Editor Jessica Cohen noticed this interesting sign in Milano.

Nothing like "freshly killed turkey" to stir the appetite!

Thanks to Sumaiya Ahmed for the photo!