New York Magazine’s Daily Intel just realized that undercover police ride around in ordinary looking taxicabs looking for lawbreakers, or really anyone, to jump out and surprise arrest. It’s totally freaking them out! Naturally, commenters aren’t letting them get away with this no-duh announcement about cop cabs patrolling our streets, even if it is a somewhat helpful reminder. Which means some NY Mag staffers are getting all defensive about being out of touch. Who knew yellow cops were such a hot-button issue?

“this is not new at all”
Heatherc123

“We’re agreed that it’s unfair, but CopCabs really aren’t new. I’ve seen them around the city for years.”
N27

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Artist Steve Powers, who has the unlikely distinction of being a favored graffiti artist and Fulbright scholar, is taking it back to Coney Island this summer with a simulated waterboarding display. For just one dollar you can see an animatronic torturer waterboard an orange jumpsuited prisoner. Pouring water over the cloth covered face, and up the nose and mouth, the pricisoner experiences the process of drowning and struggles at his restraints (robotically in this case). Powers’ intent is to get people thinking, and he asks, “What’s more obscene, the official position that waterboarding is not torture, or our official position that it’s a thrill ride?”

Here are some crowd reactions to the display:

“It’s not something to be made fun of. It’s just something they’re trying to make a quick buck off, I guess.”

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Best known for his work documenting war and suffering around the world, photographer Q. Sakamaki’s new book, Tompkins Square Park, shows his earlier work in a place so close yet so far away: the Lower East Side well before there were $10 million penthouses on Avenue C. The NY Times talks with Sakamaki about his experiences documenting the community’s struggle against gentrification and sometimes simply to survive.

“Upon arriving in the city in 1986 he settled in the East Village, where he was alternately charmed and horrified by what he found. Dilapidated and abandoned buildings lined the streets. Entire blocks were filled with little more than rubble and bricks. Heroin was sold in candy stores, and gunshots sounded in the night. In the morning he sometimes spotted the bodies of people who had been killed or had died of overdoses.”

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Best known for his street installations, on his own and with Leon Reid, Artist Brad Downey, was recently asked what work he is most proud of.

“It’s hard to say. But I am quite fond of taking CCTV cameras down. I have a nice little collection of these objects. It is something I have been doing since 2005, I think this work is important. I do not know if its art but I am proud of it.”

He also talks about his latest video work and new book, The Adventures of Darius and Downey, written by Ed Zipco. Head over to Ekosystem for the full interview.

Photo of Brad Downey’s work by fahrlaessig on Flickr.

Already an exhibition and book, Beautiful Losers is now a new documentary which celebrates the work and D.I.Y. ethic of a group of contemporary artists who came together in the early nineties. Directed by Aaron Rose, whose NYC storefront-sized Alleged Gallery served as the meeting ground and showcase for these artists’ work, the film focuses on personal stories around their emergence from the subcultures of skateboarding, graffiti, punk rock, and hip-hop towards mainstream pop culture. This Friday, the film makes its New York City debut at the IFC Center and tickets are available online.

The film features artists Aaron Rose, Barry McGee, Chris Johanson, Ed Templeton, Geoff McFetridge, Harmony Korine, Jo Jackson, Margaret Killgallen, Mike Mills, Deanna Templeton, Stephen “ESPO” Powers, Thomas Campbell, Shepard Fairey, and Cheryl Dunn.

+ 28 Days Later, the post-apocalyptic film in which a virus turns everyone Londoner into kill, at McCarren Park Pool. (8 PM at McCarren Park Pool, North 11th and Driggs Ave, Brooklyn)

+ Captured, the film on documentarian Clayton Patterson’s documentation of the Lower East Side, plays at Webster Hall. (7 PM at Webster Hall, 125 East 11th Street, Manhattan)

+ Fiasco Tour Kick Off - Ninjasonik, Fiasco, The Homosexuals, Pony Pants, The So So Glos, and Bat Attack! play an all ages show at the Market Hotel. ($8 at 8 PM at the Market Hotel, 1142 Myrtle Ave at Broadway, Brooklyn)

Tomorrow Morning

+ 8/6 - Protest ‘Cops Gone Wild’ - If you’re outraged by latest incidents of police brutality, join electeds, social justice and civil rights groups in the call for an end to the harassment, intimidation and physical assault of New Yorkers by NYPD Officers. (10 AM at One Police Plaza, Manhattan)

Know something happening? Get in touch.

Still from 28 Days Later.

Photographer Bryan Derballa shares some photos of Jay, “a former drug-dealer and ex-convict that began hustling at the age of 13.”

“Now 34, Jay has spent almost half his life in prison. Two years ago, he married Gladys, a well-educated school teacher. They live together in the projects where she grew up. Jay claims that her love has saved his life and for the first time in his 15 year-long addiction to heroin, he began seeking methadone treatment. Everyday is a struggle but not without hope.”

In addition to the photos, there is also an audio slideshow.