Above you'll see Comet 17/P Holmes making its way across the sky. This photo was taken by philliefan_99, who caught this bright image just outside the city a few days after Holmes made an amazing outburst on October 24 -- and by "amazing" we mean it brightened nearly a million times. Though the comet has been close enough to the Earth to be visible through fairly powerful telescopes since July, it's now visible with......

MONDAY: Peter Behrens will be at Politics and Prose to discuss his latest book, The Law of Dreams. Maybe Behrens can analyze our reoccurring dream where we keep getting lost while driving down some featureless freeway. Wait ... His book is about a young man roaming the Irish countryside in 1847? Good thing we read that before we asked about the part where we're naked. 7:30 p.m. TUESDAY: The one and only Dave Eggers will......

>> DAM! Fest kicks of with its first night of shows featuring a dozen different bands at three venues, including New York's A Place to Bury Strangers (don't miss our interview with the band) and Dirty on Purpose at the Rock and Roll Hotel, Vandaveer and Julie Ocean at the Red and The Black, and Foreign Islands at DC9, among many others. Check out our guide to the DAM! highlights. >> Two film festivals open......

Today is National Coming Out Day, a day when gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are encouraged to be open about who they are. The annual observance began on October 11, 1988, exactly one year after the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. (The first one was held October 14, 1979.) While there aren't usually major events to commemorate the day, there are a couple of local events that coincide with......

Good Monday morning to you, Washington. We can officially declare that the dog days of August have arrived today, now that the House has finally, finally adjourned for their summer break. News junkies will want to note that before heading home they passed a modified version of the defense budget, which will increase spending for defense health care and military housing, among a list of other expenditures. Of course what Washingtonians really care about is......

Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (30 Plays in 60 Minutes), the long-running signature show of Chicago’s the Neo-Futurists that we reviewed yesterday, requires each of its performers to be a hybrid of improv artist, actor, athlete, and polemicist. Notwishstanding the fact that the team currently performing the show in the Fringe Festival is 40% female, it also takes some serious balls. Because although you can rest assured that if a “play”......

Poor Victor Reinoso. First the acting Deputy Mayor for Education gets caught up in a plagiarism scandal, then D.C. Council chairman Vincent Gray delays his confirmation vote, calling into question whether Reinoso should be in his job, or if anyone should have his job in the first place. The guy could only be more embattled if he had a sex scandal hanging over his head. What's that you say? The Examiner reports that one of......

Banner week for SFist as the site's new editor introduced himself -- hooray for Brock! While the NY Times weighed in on SF's mayoral race, only SFist had the (insert tongue firmly into cheek) hard-hitting latest on candidate/activist Josh Wolf. Coverage of a protest vs. gentrification spawned a fantastic debate amongst SFist's readers. Finally, from the sublime to the ridiculous: video of a man that confused a Board of Supes meeting with "open mic......

LAist was comped front row seats by the Dodgers due to Malingering being struck by a foul ball last week, and she came back with some great photos, and earlier made fun of 4th of July on Venice Beach. But the biggest stories of the week was that the Mayor's Hot Tamale was revealed, and that a Kwik-E-Mart was erected in Burbank. Phillyist was busy doing the Fourth of July up right, exercising their......

Holy smokes! Giant fish on the MTA, Paris Hilton in jail, then out, then in again, Al Gore, goatses, blumpkins, Matt Damon, and baby art critics! It's been a busy week across the Ist-A-Verse, and here's a smattering of what's been going on. In Gothamist's neck of the woods, they found out that many things are possible: A man caught a 40+ pound fish off the Rockaways and took it home on the subway. Graffiti......

Spring is when we get busy here in the Ist-A-Verse. Very busy. But, after staying bundled-up indoors all winter, it's nice for us to be out, about, and collecting things to write about for you. Here's a glimpse at what's been keeping your favorite citybloggers busily away from home and out of bed. For LAist, strong winds attacked LA on the same day the Feds raided the Crips. Not to fear, though: the Japanese version......

Let's see. What could possibly be going on in the arts this weekend? Hmm, oh right. DCist Exposed has been getting some love from the Post (did you check out last weekend's Sunday Source?), Washingtonian, and a whole slew of online sources. We just got back from hanging the show and, oh man, it looks great, so we hope you'll give it some love, too, tomorrow night at Warehouse, 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Please forgive......

Sure, young love gets all the credit for being inspiring, adorable, all-consuming. But what about middle-aged love? Turns out it’s a little less cute and a little more complicated, but no less riveting or endearing. Such is the appeal of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, a very real romance being staged by Arena. The show opens with a past-their-prime couple, well, coupling, naked onstage, in the midst of a heated one night......

As our Gothamist friends picked up back in 2005, 28-year-old comedienne Jennifer Dziura is a pretty funny gal. After reading her bio, I quickly realized that I wanted to be her. The Dartmouth philosophy grad is a human smorgasbord, with past stints as a contraceptive tester, naked model for miscellaneous art schools, trapeze assistant, dot-com entrepreneur, and occasional comedy writer for McSweeney's and the Idiot's Guide to Jokes. Every Monday she emcees Williamsburg’s “Spelling Bee"......

Between fake terrorist alerts and scandals big and small, this just might be the Best Best of the -ists ever. We're exhausted just thinking about it. First up, SFist, who saw their little 'ole site be the center of what was a nice little scandal (even getting their editor on TV) only to find their scandal dwarfed by the even bigger scandal caused by their Mayor boffing one of his aides' wife. We're not......

Ain't Named Passion For Nothing Once again, the men of Passion Food's restaurants (TenPenh, Ceiba, D.C. Coast, and Acadiana) get out of their kitchen kits for a nude romp through 2007. Mr. Kliman over at the Washingtonian lets us in on what's underneath the aprons of some of Passion Food's cookmen, like Acadiana sous chef Anthony Piscioneri and TenPenh chef de cuisine Cliff Wharton. Though most aren't totally naked (though I hear Mr. October, Ceiba's......

Richard Strauss's Salome (1905) helped set the tone for iconoclastic opera in the 20th century. Shattering most of the genre's conventions — formulaic plots, vocal characterization, propriety — this tale of lust, incest, and decollation may still shock some viewers, but it has become a modern classic. Although Washington National Opera last staged it as recently as 2002, Washington audiences should be pleased to have another chance to hear it, in an excellent concert version......

Greetings, Washington. Welcome to yet another shortened work week. With no less than three abbreviated work weeks (four for some) in the past month, the prospect of an unmitigated series of five-dayers looms large. So enjoy a back-to-work Tuesday while you can, but don't forget to wear a coat. That's right, January really is a winter month and today will see temps drop throughout the day accompanied by blustery winds, remnants of the deadly winter......

Hope you didn't stay up too late debating the President's speech with friends last night, Washington. We stayed up a bit past our bedtimes ourselves, mostly pondering the rhetorical significance of the difference between the phrases "mistakes were made", and "where mistakes have been made". Either way, we take full responsibility for any mistakes that were/have been made in this morning roundup, which was completed with the known unknown of the amount of sleep we......

As 2006 ends and 2007 begins, the -ists look back not at the past week, but at the past year. So here it is, your Best of 2006 Spectacular. And from all of us at the -ists, happy New Year! Austinist was all about controversy as new construction to increase urban density ran rampant in 2006, as did threats to the city's image from gigantic corporations looking to set up shop in town, leading......

Happy Holidays! Chances are, you're reading this the day after Christmas, back at your day job after all-too-short a holiday, and the last thing you want from us is stuff about the holidays. But that's just too bad. Because, see, here in the Ist-A-Verse, we do things ahead of time. It might be December 26 for you, but that's what you get for not checking your Favorite Local Blog on Christmas Eve. Austinist is......

My mother has her own non-profit "recycling project." It's called the holiday gift closet, filled with girly lotion sets and hand-held electronic poker games, ready to re-gift. It's perfect for those fake friends who are clearly not worth the shopping trip. These are just the kind of age-old holiday traditions that Washington Improv Theater wants to know about for their annual show, Seasonal Disorder. Each December, Washington Improv Theater hosts the yuletide-themed spectacle Seasonal Disorder,......

Have you reached Snakes on a Plane-level saturation yet? Are you ready to smack the next person you hear doing a bad Kazakh accent? Do you just not see the humor in two grown men wrestling naked in a hotel room? Did you welcome a dozen channels of dedicated election coverage as a break from Borat media over-exposure, but really couldn't enjoy it because you lived in constant fear that Sasha Baron Cohen would crash......

Love. True love. That indefinable flame that sometimes sparks between two people the first time they meet. The crackle of electricity, the rush of endorphins. That idyllic brand of love at first sight that has inspired great poets throughout the ages. That singular moment when you look into a pair of eyes just as starry as yours, and know, in your heart, in your gut, in your little toes, that this person, and no other,......

DCist wishes to send warm fuzzy thoughts and to express solidarity with Martha this morning, upon hearing that she has again been seriously injured and is currently undergoing treatment at the Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research center in Delaware. Martha, the female half of the D.C. area's most dashing Eagle couple, has already suffered some serious indignities this year. After being injured in a mid-air fight with another female eagle back in April, Martha eventually......

Sure, with Free Night of Theater on the horizon, it may be hard to justify shelling out for a ticket to a stage show, but trust us — with all the intriguing offerings that local companies have in store, you'll want to see more than one show this month. Previously at the Fringe Festival, Round House Silver Spring presents Bushwa: A Modern Ubu, about an intellectually-challenged king. Hmm. Wonder what it's like to have your......

This week's Overheard entries were a little slim, and with that in mind, we thought perhaps an assignment was in order. Don't worry, we're not springing a pop quiz on you on a Friday, and this is nothing like that dream you had where you walked into class naked. Unless you want it to be. That's your business. But here in Washington, we have no shortage of places to eavesdrop on the unsuspecting, and that's......

Cabaret does not seem to be a format of entertainment that appeals to everyone. In fact, most fans of the style that I know either starred in their high school production of Pippin and/or could be caught singing "Maybe This Time" in the shower. Then again, The Warehouse Next Door was packed with eager audience members and clear Cabaret fans (this writer included) Tuesday night, so either D.C. has a lot of former theatre people,......

FRIDAY: >>Today is Bastille Day, which commemorates the Fête de la Fédération of 1790, held on the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille July 14th, 1789 — basically it's all about sticking it to the man and rising up as a French nation. But as all noble foreign holidays seem to be celebrated in America, we've turned it into an excuse to eat and drink too much. Last year we put together a......

Washington may not be all that serene these days, what with the political goings-on and the influx of tourists. If you need a break, you can experience a bit of La Serenissima at the National Gallery of Art with Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting, an exhibit that opened a couple weeks ago and continues through September 17. Focusing on the first part of the 16th century in Venice, the exhibit combines......