LAist began the month with a new food series exploring the popular and unknown late night eats around town. If a Top Chef winner opened up a late night spot in Los Angeles, denizens would flock it, yet the LA Times and other media might be wary. Turning to sports, the Dodger season was quite memorable in the way that it imploded and the LA County Sheriff's Department made some games of their own such... more ›

At this week's concerts, the National Symphony Orchestra premiered the new harp concerto that it commissioned from Mark Adamo. Adamo dedicated Four Angels to conductor Leonard Slatkin, who helped make the commission happen, and the NSO's principal harpist, Dotian Levalier, for whom the solo part was created. On Friday night at the Kennedy Center, Slatkin led the NSO through a sensitive reading of this rather traditional but hauntingly lovely score. The first movement is named... more ›

Memorial Day has come and gone, and we are now officially in the summer hiatus of the Classical Music Agenda. Here are some highlights for this week: in a week or two, this feature will take a well-deserved rest until Labor Day, when the classical concert schedule returns to full power. TOPS THIS WEEK: >> On Wednesday night, the excellent NPR radio program From the Top will be recorded in front of a live audience... more ›

LAist is experimenting with blogging dates from J-Date, but finds the best men are found offline. Some date vicariously online and that is one reason why porn is big -- really freaking big -- so they ask if they should cover XXX since the heart of it lays in the city's San Fernando Valley. A writer grapples with her food porn photography obsession, another gets censored on Flickr, one gets scooped by the LA... more ›

This week we'd like to congratulate the -ist network's Mother Hen, Gothamist's Jen Chung, who found herself a recipient of Wired Magazine's Wired Rave Award. If that doesn't sound terribly exciting, keep in mind another recipient was J.K. Rowling. Yep, that's right, the -ist network and Harry Potter now have something in common. Go us. Austinist has a chat with the ever-fashionable Golden Girl Rue McClanahan, and managed to catch some local fashionistas making... more ›

Sometimes music as seemingly simple as Page France's feels like it’s hardly worth writing about. At the Black Cat on Thursday, the Cumberland, MD six-piece (reigning as the undisputed best indie pop band in western Maryland) played a thirty minute set. Maybe 8 or 10 songs, each one barely more than a hastily-strummed acoustic guitar, a tinkling xylophone, and a simple snare beat. Some songs hardly even had a single chord change for the first... more ›

We don't know about where you are, but it seems like spring can't decide whether or not to happen. Some days are warm, some days are cold, and sometimes you aren't sure which. Baseball may have started up (and soccer/football winding down) but it still seems cold out there. Unless it's not. Anyways, onto the -ists. Austinist happily anticipated fall's Austin City Limits, even though they're not fully recovered from South By Southwest. In... more ›

We here in the Ist-A-Verse know that we're sensational, but it's very rare that we get a chance to be sensationalistic. This week, we've decided to have ourselves a little fun and try our hand at tacky tabloid headlines, using nothing more than our favorite posts from this week. Torontoist Special Report: Rosie to Trump: "Fire 300 Bicyclists for Fraud!" On DCist: Students Go Wild for Slogans, Secrets and Sexual Harassment The action was thick... more ›

The first snow may have been late, but it sure was a pretty one. Flickr user Karon took her camera out into the shivery cold and found this girl poised, but not quite willing, to make some snow angels. Think she'll get a another chance this year? Maybe. EXIF.... more ›

Throat is one of the most moving reactions to the Iraq war that I've come across. Is it the utterly convincing and devastating performances of its leads, Raul Castillo and Lisa Sauber? Is it its themes, which are less interested in furthering an agenda and more focused on showing us the emotional and psychological impacts of any war situation, awarding a damaged dignity to the soldiers portrayed? Or perhaps its script, peppered with relatable anecdotes... more ›

Not all circuses were created equally. Cirque du Soleil often most closely resembles a play, opera, or dance about a circus, rather than a circus in its own right. Cirque abandons many components of the traditional circus that many people take for granted: you won't find any animals in here, and all the music is live. Cirque peformances seem to always carry a narrative component that resides somewhere between the surreal and the fairy tale... more ›

Monday >> The hordes will flock to DAR Constitution Hall this Monday night to mark the return of Death Cab to D.C. with Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. They recently added a second, Tuesday night show, but feel free to take your pick, as tickets are still available for both days. $34, 8 p.m. >> It’s black Monday in the district, as the nominal antithesis of the White Stripes, The Black Keys, complete another 2-day... more ›

Sometimes The Onion is scarily prescient. Just yesterday I was browsing through the site on a whim and got a chuckle out of this story, titled "Verizon Introduces New Charge-You-At-Whim Plan". Then, while browsing through the local news, I came across WTOP's story about a new surcharge that Verizon is about to introduce. The stories even carry the same date. Like I said: scarily prescient. But enough Onion-admiration; let's move on to the Verizon-bashing. The... more ›

Two men get stuck in the middle of nowhere, en route to meet up with some "pretty ladies" who they hope will wash the gay right out of them. Shoulder, one of Flashpoint's Fringe Festival offerings, tries to create sympathy for a couple of self-loathing gay men, but ultimately creates just the opposite. This is no Angels in America, a story of men struggling to make sense of their place in a society plagued by... more ›

Good morning, Washington. So... did you participate in Bike to Work Day? And wasn't it surprisingly pleasant? We hope the answer to both questions is yes. Here's one more reason to pick up the habit: yesterday WTOP reported that Metro will be replacing its old bike racks with ones that are more spacious and secure. Wilson Bridge Dedicated: The Post paints the scene at yesterday's Wilson Bridge Dedication ceremony. Governors! Giant flags! Woodrow Wilson's Rolls... more ›

Rorschach Theatre's production of A Bright Room Called Day does an excellent job of bringing on the tension. Sometimes it's during a young woman's vehement, Reagan-hating scenes set in the early 1980s. In her fervent state of alarm and outrage, she would be just as at home standing in front of the White House today, railing against the current adminstration. Sometimes it's in watching the breakdown of one character, a tortured homosexual man (Alexander Strain),... more ›

FRIDAY: >> Get in line early tonight at the Rorschach Theatre in Columbia Heights for a special Pay-What-You-Can performance of their revival of Tony Kushner's A Bright Room Called Day. Set in Berlin in the 1930's, Bright Room is one of Kushner's (Angels in America, Homebody/Kabul) earlier plays, but by no means his least accomplished. If younger District residents aren't able to connect easily with Zillah, who is consumed by a hatred for Ronald Reagan,... more ›

Apparently everyone in heaven has a funny name (we're pumping our fist in celebration, as are the Dick Trickles of the world). The Angel of Southeast Jerome came to visit from heaven with oddly named angels: Pretty Teeth, Sweetfeet Jenkins, Luscious, Pied-Piper Piccolo, Johnny Whiteguy, and Biggie Short. As usual, Clinton Portis arrived at his Thursday News Conference dressed in absurd garb. Unusually, he brought five of his teammates with him. Throughout this town, there... more ›

We've all heard the news -- the negotiations between MLB and the District over the new stadium aren't going particularly well. The City Council is increasingly annoyed with a stadium that is fast exceeding expected costs, while MLB continues being its own worst enemy by refusing to consider even the most basic financial concessions to the city. In a private meeting with the council yesterday, MLB chief negotiator Jerry Reinsdorf both surprised and angered the... more ›

For way too long, it's seemed that D.C. has suffered from an extreme dearth of excellent (not to mention affordable) Italian food. Dinners at local establishments were either astronomically priced, mediocre-tasting, or, disappointingly, both. In the past few months, though, that's all been changing. With several tapas/enoteca-inspired Italian restaurants opening in the area, it's easier than ever to find a delicious plate of fresh pasta, a full-bodied glass of wine, or an authentic Italian meal... more ›

Catherine Andrews contributed to these picks FRIDAY: >> It's your duty as a local music loving citizen: you must make it out to the Black Cat tonight to catch the line up of Washington Social Club (read our interview here), Monopoli, and Cartel. Their live shows range from frenetic to slowburning to melodious, and they're all a treat. DCist will be there with stacks of t-shirts to sell and info about the site. 9:30,... more ›

The Nats didn't play last night, but that's fine: They -- and we -- needed a breather after their heartstopping 1-0 win on Wednesday, their final game against the Angels and their fifth straight series victory. Starting pitcher Ryan Drese, released by the Texas Rangers just last week, was flawless on the mound through eight innings. With one run on the up on board, Nats closer Chad Cordero just had to make it official. Instead,... more ›

Mike Scioscia's tragic illness might have made us smile when he appeared on The Simpsons a decade ago, but around these parts there are no warm feelings toward him anymore. Least of all Nationals manager Frank Robinson, whom the W. Post quotes: "I lost a lot of respect for Mike tonight, as a person and as a manager. There's nothing he can say to me now. Nothing. I don't even want him to approach me.... more ›

(Editor's Note: DCist would like to welcome Chris Kelly to our Sports staff. He will be assisting in our coverage of the Nationals with a weekly column each Monday.) Call 'em "The Comeback Kids", "The One-Run Wonders", "The Cardiac Kids"; doesn't matter. Call 'em whatever you want, but your first place Washington Nationals extended their 10-game winning streak yesterday with yet another 1-run victory (8 out of their last 13 wins have been by 1... more ›

This DCist really, really wanted to hate "The Washingtonienne". The Victoria's Secret cover, the awfulness of the extremely loose typesetting, the sub-par press release, the ridiculously overpriced hardcover for a book that's supposedly a beach read: all were good reasons to bring the hate. But you know what? We finished the book in a day. And enjoyed it. It's not literature, and it only just barely qualifies for that awful Publisher's Weekly category that is... more ›

Long before Thelma and Louise and Charlie's Angels, the first "action-babe" was a 19-year-old cross-dressing French girl who claimed she could see angels, gave the French one of their few military victories, and altered the course of English history before -- not much later -- getting executed. For this bizarre-but-true story, she was canonized by the Catholic Church in 1920 and immortalized on film by Hollywood dozens of times, most famously by the "Fifth Element"... more ›

The afternoon before the Wilco concert at the 9:30 Club, we browsed around Craigslist and eBay just to see what tickets were going for. Scalpers were asking anywhere from $50-$100 per ticket, and desperate fans were promising the equivalent of their first born baby to gain entrance. Geez, we thought. Maybe we should consider selling our precious tickets to the highest bidder -- we weren't huge fans of "A Ghost Is Born," Wilco's last recording,... more ›

Once again DCist is happy to bring you the football coverage of Jason Linkins aka The DCeiver. In the annals of sport, the great teams are often supported by the great on-field partnerships. Tinker to Evers to Chance. Montana and Clark. Stockton to Malone. Connected only through the bond of sport, these collaborators brought glory to their teams even as they ascribed their own legend. Well, prepare to add another set of names to the... more ›

If there is an emergency in a metrorail tunnel and commuters need to be evacuated, a member of the new Metro Citizen Corps may guide their way to safety. That is of course, there happens to be a Citizen Corps member -- or as DCeiver said yesterday, the "Junior Varsity version of the Guardian Angels" -- at the scene of an emergency. WMATA today released details on its new program that in theory, will aid... more ›

It's been a busy day for crime and justice news. A quick roundup ... The Post notes that a charter bus was stolen from South Capitol Street, but was found later in Prince George's County. Also three Colorado teenagers have been arrested on drug, weapons and illegal possession of fireworks charges when they drove their recreational vehicle into a restricted traffic zone near the White House. When security officials stopped the vehicle at 17th and... more ›