NYC-area readers might be interested.

CHRIS ANDERSON in conversation with Lawrence Lessig
Thursday, September 28, 2006, at 7:00 PM, Celeste Bartos Forum

The twentieth century was the heyday of the hit, when the extraordinary power of broadcast technologies unified countries and even the globe. Mass markets ruled and bestsellers dominated the shelves, snapping societies into cultural lockstep. But then came the Web and the power of digital distribution, with infinite shelf space, near-zero costs and an appetite for a million niches. What will happen to our culture and economy as we shift from blockbusters to "nichebusters" and everything finds an audience, no matter how small?

Join Chris Anderson, author of the new book The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More, and Lawrence Lessig, Stanford law professor and author of Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity, as they debate the cultural consequences of our shift into the "Long Tail" of demand and what still stands in the way of truly unlimited choice.

This one also looks interesting:

The Atlantic Monthly's 150TH ANNIVERSARY: Celebration of Ideas Gala

One Saturday afternoon in 1857, at a luncheon held at Boston’s Parker House Hotel, an elite assemblage of America’s brightest literary lights hatched the idea for a new publication—a magazine that would serve as a forum for the best thinking and writing in the United States. The group included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes and they named their new venture The Atlantic Monthly. The inaugural issue of The Atlantic debuted in November 1857 at a cost of 25 cents. Within two years, circulation had risen above 30,000; a remarkable feat against a population of 30 million. Over the years, The Atlantic has published many leaders and literary figures such as Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson, Booker T. Washington, Helen Keller, Vladimir Nabokov, Virginia Woolf, to name a few and was the first to publish seminal pieces by our most recognized thinkers such as Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" (1963).

“The American Idea,” a visual exhibition and celebration of landmark ideas and their resulting impact on society, will be depicted through memorabilia, writings, and renderings illustrating The Atlantic’s contribution to “The American Conversation” and to long-form journalism. This gala celebration will include a commemorative presentation and recitation of some of the most significant American letters published in The Atlantic over 150 years.

The Rise and Fall of the Blockbuster | LIVE from the NYPL