>> The Capitol Christmas Tree lighting ceremony is scheduled to take place at 5 p.m. this evening on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol. >> Washington-area writers Michelle Brafman, Merle Collins, T. Greenwood, Joanne Leedom-Ackerman, Faye Moskowitz, Barbara Mujica, Jessica Neely, Amy Stolls, Hananah Zaheer, and Christy J. Zink will be at Politics and Prose to read from their contributions to the latest anthology, Electric Grace: Still More Fiction by Washington Area Women.......

Marin Alsop had only to walk onto the stage of Meyerhoff Symphony Hall Friday night to receive a standing ovation. Rare have been the evenings with that hall so full for a concert by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in recent years. One can only hope that the honeymoon will be long-lasting for Alsop and Charm City. That this renewal was consecrated over a program of John Adams and Mahler is all the more remarkable. The......

While no major event on the schedule this week trumps all others, there are several concerts that will merit your attention. Three of them are scheduled for Thursday night. If contemporary music was the headliner last week, this week it is early music. >> Opera Lafayette's bread and butter is in presenting obscure Baroque operas, usually French, sung by exceptional voices and with the help of their fine instrumental ensemble. The group opens its season......

Last Chance for A.V. Sad, we know. Get it before it becomes a half-empty office building. Restaurant Week Starts August 6 There are a few good things about Washington in August. First, it's so damned hot and soupy that there are about 100 times fewer tourists. Second, Congress leaves town and tons of governmental types take vacation, so town slows down considerably, leaving rush hour slightly less enraging. Third, it's when the summer version of......

There is little doubt that the main event this week is the opening of the final part of the Washington National Opera's season. The company's penultimate production, Leoš Janáček's Jenůfa in a staging by David Alden, won the Laurence Olivier Award this year for best new opera production. For reasons beyond understanding, not a single performance has sold out, although this is likely to be the high point of the WNO season. Some people may......

It might be one of the most disheartening experiences in Washington. You leave your house one day, walk out to your car, and you see a big piece of paper on the windshield. "Please tell me the clubs have just gotten more aggressive with their advertising," you think to yourself, but no, it says, "DO NOT MOVE THIS CAR." You rush to the street side of your vehicle only to find 40 pounds of orange......

By DCist Contributor Mehan Jayasuriya We here at DCist have noticed a rather disturbing trend recently. More and more often, it seems, touring bands are skipping over the District in favor of our neighbor to the north, Baltimore. It makes sense if you think about it: Baltimore has a burgeoning arts scene, a variety of music venues and a seemingly disproportionate reputation for housing a large number of twentysomething scenesters (not that we're short on......

>> Could an Evangelical group be forcing your kids to swap spit in school? We were just as shocked as some parents to learn that the answer may be "yes." Apparently, just such a program, aimed at teaching kids about STDs and peer pressure, has been in place at many Montgomery County schools for nine years. In the lesson one student is given a piece of gum to chew and then other kids are asked......

The classical music schedule in Washington is starting to fill up, so that by February and March, we will be overwhelmed. Here are a few sure bets this week, as well as a smattering of concerts off the beaten path. THE BIG GUNS: >> Soprano Deborah Voigt has always had a big, gorgeous voice. She made news two years ago when she was fired from a production because the director wanted her character to wear......

So you survived the coldest night of the season. Now enjoy a healthy serving of wacky traffic. Water somehow made its way onto several area streets and is gumming up the works in fine fashion. Waking up with temps in the teens makes today's high of 39 sound positively toasty! Are you ready to rock?: Metro is considering a plan to formally allow artists to perform outside subway stations beginning next year. The program would......

Written by DCist contributor Alex Hogan and Martin Austermuhle D.C. Mayor, City Council: Ok, so the September Democratic primary kinda took the air out of the District's official mayoral election, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't go vote. Look for a crushing Democratic sweep, but give a little time and check out what the Statehood Green and Republican candidates, Chris Otten and David Kranich, respectively, have to offer. We'd like to think that someday their......

After last week, and especially yesterday and today, probably the busiest weekend in October for classical music, things slow down a little this week. Not to worry, there are concerts for you to hear and some good ones at that. TOP PICKS: >> A week from today (October 22, 7 p.m.), there are still tickets for the recital by Croatian piano virtuoso Ivo Pogorelich at the George Mason University Center for the Arts, way out......

Last night DCist ventured north to Charm City for a three band lineup made in blogger heaven. L.A.'s Cold War Kids, Denmark's Figurines and Minnesota's Tapes 'n Tapes brought the music that all the indie kids have been gushing about to a great little club called Fletcher's. The review in 20 words or less: Cold Ware Kids were really, really good. Figurines were not. Tapes 'n Tapes pretty much rocked. Fletcher's is a tiny (probably......

The Nats finally enjoyed a day off yesterday after more than two weeks of consecutive gamedays. A winning May seems to have gotten the season back on track after a disasterous April, but the Nats still have to cover plenty of ground if they want to make a run at the top half of the division. Winning four out of the six remaining games on this roadtrip will be necessary to maintain some momentum heading......

Here at DCist, we do not normally concern ourselves much with Baltimore, for obvious reasons contained in the name of this site. However, I do go up to Charm City regularly to hear concerts, and I mention things to hear there if they are exceptional. So, as I advised you all in last week's Classical Music Agenda, on Friday night DCist Got In On It and heard the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall.......

There are lots of good reasons to ride Metro when moving about the city. It's cheaper and easier than buying and maintaining a car, it's good for the environment, and it teaches patience. Perhaps the best reason to be a regular user of rail transport, however, is because placing oneself on or near a roadway in the metropolitan area will get you all smashed up with a probability approaching 1. The Associated Press reports today......

Large Sewage Spill Sours Potomac River: Some 17 million gallons of raw sewage spilled into the Potomac River on Saturday, reports NBC 4. The spill was caused by a three-hour power failure at the Blue Plains sewage treatment plant on the eastern back of the river. And though 17 million gallons sounds like a lot, the EPA has predicted that the spill won't have a major impact, a claim countered by the Anacostia Watershed......

We don't normally include musical events in Baltimore in this agenda, for obvious reasons. However, we are leading off with a singular opportunity up in Charm City this week, the production of Jake Heggie's opera Dead Man Walking (premiered by San Francisco Opera in 2000) at Baltimore Opera. This new opera was a smash success at its premiere and has been revived in several more successful productions in the years since. Having just gone up......

If you're like us, you've got more holiday parties to attend this weekend than you can count with your socks off. But just in case you're still looking for more merriment, here's a look at this weekend's offerings. FRIDAY: >> Charm City's own Lake Trout has been getting stellar reviews for their sophomore effort, Them, Not You. They also spent part of the fall opening up for the Pixies, which makes us so envious, we......

Hate to say it, but last night's Food Network premiere of Sugar Rush, featuring Cakelove’s Warren Brown, gets mixed reviews from us. On one hand, Brown is great to look at and has fun with his interviewees. But on the other hand, he’s like a smiling deer in headlights when it’s just him and the camera. Next time, do a few head rolls and shake out those lanky limbs, Warren. If we had a......

MONDAY: >> We've been hearing an awful lot about certain journalists who've spent superfluous time in jail for ideals they supposedly believe in -- but, before you make any contributions to that gravy train, why not hear from Marie-Helene Carleton, who'll be in town discussing the travails of her filmmaker partner Micah Garen, who was taken hostage in Iraq in 2003. Even if you're an avid news junkie, there's still a lot you don't know......

Venues aren't exactly action-packed this week, but there are a number of opportunities to see some bands hovering just beneath the radar. And there's Blowfly (more below). Monday: The Black Cat show looks promising. The keyboard-heavy pop band, Karmella's Game, a DCist favorite from Charm City, takes the stage with interesting Chicago (Evanston?) act The Reputation. On the backstage. $6. Tuesday: Sadly, Ladybug Mecca, of Digable Planets, has cancelled on the Black Cat. There is,......

Despite the fact that the humidity is supposed to decrease this weekend, it's still going to be a hot one in D.C. And it's in this hot weather that we get hit with a bad case of nostalgia for our youth, which for this DCist was spent in Baltimore (okay, Baltimore County). One of the greatest joys for us in summer was cracking steamed crabs -- something you can find fairly easily in the general......

There's a minor controversy today on eGullet in reference to Tom Sietsema's review of Pazo, which will appear in Sunday's Post Magazine. This time, the controversy isn't over the restaurant's rating (three stars), but over its location: 1425 Aliceanna St., Baltimore. eGullet poster "lackadaisi" takes exception to Sietsema reviewing a restaurant an hour north of the District proper: "The Post needs a reviewer that is dedicated to its city, and Tom Sietsema is most certainly......

We wish we would have had our camera last night. When this DCist was walking down Columbia Road near the Safeway, we spotted some more Borf graffiti, which isn't really anything new. Any DCist reader knows that Mr. Borf has been all over D.C. and has been making his presence known across the region. But the srcibble on a Washington Post Express distribution bin was something different, a slam on our neighbors to the north:......