>> The holiday gift season is officially here, which means we're going to start seeing a little more emphasis on the latter half of "arts and crafts" around the city, when the search for the perfect present for Aunt Sallie ends with you standing in front of a pile of handmade tea kettle cozies. You might want to start with the high quality stuff, and get to the Washington Craft Show this weekend at the......

>> The silent film version of the original Chicago will be presented with live musical accompaniment at the AFI Silver Theater. 7 p.m. >> New Yorker music critic Alex Ross will be at Politics and Prose to read from The Rest is Noise, a history of the 20th century through its music. 7 p.m. >> Brooklyn's Black Dice are at the Rock and Roll Hotel with Ecstatic Sunshine, Baltimore's Ponytail and The Methamphetamines. 8......

Because of the Thanksgiving holiday, our picks here at DCist look a little slim this week. Fear not, the authors will return to our city next week with more books they think you should buy as holiday gifts. In the meantime, enjoy and be thankful for your pie. MONDAY: Mr. The Greatest Generation, Tom Brokaw, is back to give us another "epic portrait" of a defining era in U.S. history, this time the 1960s in......

Channel 9 reporter Bruce Johnson has broken the story on the dust-up at the Washington Post this past week. Classical music critic Tim Page, winner of a Pulitzer prize, has long been one of the best writers in the Style section, making the paper's shrinking coverage of classical music all the more shameful. In response to a mass email from the staff of Ward 8 Council member Marion Barry, which was sent to Page apparently......

FRIDAY: >> It’s been over six years since he last had a properly released album, but crooner Bilal (left) has still managed to catch people’s attention with some of his latest material. Too bad it was illegally leaked and now his label is threatening never to let the refined product see the light of day. Regardless, his Black Cat performance should be noteworthy. 9 p.m., $22. >> We’ve told you about Deleted Scenes many times......

MONDAY: Jerome Groopman — a New Yorker staff writer, best-selling author and professor at Harvard Medical School — will be at the Historic Sixth & I Synagogue to discuss his latest collection of essays, How Doctors Think. If they're like our favorite television doctor, it's probably "What's the best way to humiliate my employees today?" 7 p.m. $6 TUESDAY: Min Jin Lee will be at the Johns Hopkins University-SAIS Bernstein-Offit Building to read from her......

Ryan Adams is famously: prolific, eccentric, smart, currently-sober, a very hip New Yorker, unpredictable and a little nuts. That said, nobody knows what they're going to get when attending a Ryan Adams concert. Last night at DAR Constitution Hall, the alt-country musician gave the audience musical perfection and a heaping helping of tension. Ryan Adams and his band, The Cardinals, unassumingly took the stage to a half-empty room about an hour after the show......

Gothamist learned about the craziest urban nightmare come true: A huge python found in the bathroom pipes. It was also a nightmare for some Yankees fans, as manger Joe Torre declined to come back and manage the Bronx Bombers. At least the city's attempt to give some direction to subway riders was interesting, pranksters went shirtless at the Fifth Avenue Abercrombie & Fitch and the I Heart Brooklyn Girls calendars came out. And just......

TUESDAY: The experts at Baseball Prospectus are back at Politics and Prose to talk about America's favorite pastime. Specifically, Clay Davenport and Jay Jaffe will be discussing It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over, a collection of stories on baseball's most exciting pennant races. 7 p.m. WEDNESDAY: A recent New Yorker article commented on the controversy behind Stephen M. Walt and John J. Mearsheimer's argument in their latest book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.......

>> Fort Reno has Antelope, Scanner Freaks, and OmegaBand tonight, at the usual 7:15 p.m. start time. Check out our Three Stars interview with Scanner Freaks and album review of Antelope for a preview of the show. >> The Bang -- featuring Three Stars veteran Anthony Pirog -- is playing at Wonderland Ballroom with Pilesar and the Quagmire, 10 p.m. >> Former Washington Post writer Jeffrey Frank, now a senior editor at The New......

Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. I got a kick out of New York’s reaction to a report released back in April, showing that carbon emissions in the city had increased by about 8 percent since 1997. The news stories were alarmist and the leaders angry, promising to do whatever it took to reverse the trend and reduce emissions within 25 years. Admirable sentiments, but it made me......

If you've been complaining that Memorial Day weekend wiped out your wallet, D.C. art venues heard your pleas for something a little less draining on your finances. This weekend the city is chock full of free activities, from private gallery openings to neighborhood wide social events. Put on your walking shoes and check out the following: >> It's time again for the annual Dupont Kalorama Museum Walk Weekend. Held on the first full weekend in......

>> If you've ever thought about having a wedding of any kind, we'd recommend stopping by Olsson's Courthouse store tonight to listen to The New Yorker's Rebecca Mead, whose most recent work explores the sinister workings of the $160 billion wedding industry and has been the talk of the internets of late. Tomorrow we'll dig up information on the best ways to elope for anyone who was in attendance. Mead reads from One Perfect Day:......

There are more ways to take in our local arts scene than strolling the quiet museums on a Saturday afternoon or gulping some free wine at a gallery reception. Checking out events and lectures around the city is a great way to get exposed to not only the current exhibitions, but new ideas and theories you might not come upon while browsing the canvases by yourself. >> Patrick Swayze probably won't be there to perform,......

>> Anyone born before 1985 can surely appreciate the simple joys of 8-bit electronic entertainment. Filmfest DC presents a documentary about a complex Iowa man fighting to retain his title as World Champion of Donkey Kong. King of Kong delves into the unique lives of people involved in this epic battle. [4000 Wisconsin Ave. NW, $9, 7 p.m.] >> Unbuckled alums Pela join Metropolitan and Five Four at Rock and Roll Hotel tonight. [1353......

An exhibit designed as career retrospective must be a daunting proposition, especially when focused on a prolific artist whose output ranged over sixty years. Too many pieces, and the exhibit becomes bloated. Too few, and the audience does not get an accurate cross section of the artist’s work. Thankfully, the curators of Saul Steinberg: Illuminations, on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, threaded this needle. In doing so, they have mounted a captivating and......

They have a saying in Paris that describes the fast pace of life in that city: Métro, boulot, dodo, meaning that life consists only of an endless repetition of subway rides, work, and sleep. Life in Washington is harried, too, but sometimes you need to stop as you dash through the L'Enfant Plaza station at rush hour on a Friday in January. Who is playing the famous Chaconne from Bach's D minor partita so well......

>> Your major opening this weekend is brought to you by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The nearly 120 piece Saul Steinberg retrospective, Illuminations, features the artist's witty and deeply observant take on world events throughout his 60 year history with The New Yorker, as well as the many other sculpture, painting, and various artworks that get a little meta in their parsing of creative methods. DCist is going to check out the show this......

This post from new DCist contributor, Matt Cordell How do D.C. chefs stack up? Last night, representatives were put to the test when José Andrés (owner of Zatinya, Café Atlantico, Jaleo, Oyamel, and minibar by josé andrés) and his sous chefs, Katsuya Fukushima and Ruben Garcia, stepped into Kitchen Stadium to do battle on Food Network's Iron Chef America. Despite being advertised in advance here, here, and here (looking like the Spanish Terminator), José "chose"......

MONDAY >> Looking for an act whose name you are sure to forget at least once over the course of the evening? We give you an Orlando hip-hop duo with a name like a serial number: X:144 and SPS. Okayplayer called their debut collaboration, M.E., "a producer's wet dream." At the Red and the Black. 9:30 p.m., $8. >> After releasing solo CDs and making babies, Aterciopelados, Colombia's finest rock en español outfit is back......

New Yorker fiction pieces can be predictably melancholy. Sample plot: the narrator discovers a personality flaw, or flaw in her love life - "flaw" is the key word here—and the reader is left feeling seasick by the end. Luckily, a few amusing anecdotes have slipped into print along the way, and Theatre J has adapted some of these collected memoirs by Laura Shaine Cunningham into Sleeping Arrangements. Pain, failure, and all things deserving self-pity are......

As clubgoers stood in line outside the 9:30 Club on a chilly Monday night, a car slowed and eventually came to a stop. Down came the window and two girls yelled out, "Who's playing tonight?" "The Deftones," came a response. "What do they sound like?" "They're heavy," shot back a fan. That's about as good as you can get in describing the Deftones without getting too far into mixed genre terminology -- they're heavy. The......

The holiday shopping season is officially in full swing, so the literary reading cup runneth over and ruineth your coffee table with big names. Message from Big Literature: Books make great gifts! Message from DCist: Free readings help keep your entertainment budget low, which is helpful since you already have to spend your entire bonus on gifts for other people. MONDAY: Joan Collins is 73 years-old and still fabulous. We're not sure how she does......

Clear your calendar because the gallery season opens with a bang this weekend. Ditch work early tomorrow, meet your cohorts for a quick drink (what, you don't pre-game for gallery receptions?) and head to the closest art house at six sharp. Beer and wine abound at these showpiece sacella, so bring a date (or find one there!) and up your culture quotient a few notches. If you've never been to a gallery before, well, why......

When Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Ian Hunter, Son Volt, and Calexico make a record to save your life, you’ve achieved icon status in the music world. Yet despite his performing in bands since the '70s and solo since the early '90s, Texas-native Alejandro Escovedo is hardly a household name for those who appreciate roots music. And he rarely sells out East Coast shows. But things are changing. Over the course of the past several months,......

The weekly Ist wrap-up is written by Seattlest editor Dan Gonsiorowski. DCist helps us make more sense of the world this week. Posts like this concert review are the reason for Scott Stapp. DCist also enumerates the reasons for playing ultimate frisbee, Condi's tight buns, their love of a local convenience store, and their jealousy of a person in Seattle calling the city. LAist documented graf artist Banksy's most recent visit to LA in one......

The District is often compared to our behemoth neighbor of a city to the north, New York. And as much as we hate the comparison -- and the resulting argument -- we may be moving in New York's direction, figuratively speaking. As it turns out, certain folks see a bit of Manhattan moving down south, resulting in a so-called "Manhattanization" of the District. Bloomberg yesterday expounded on this issue in an article titled, "D.C., Once......

Every Sunday, DCist runs first person editorial pieces about life in this city of ours. If you've got something to say, we'd be happy to listen. This week, Ian Manheimer contributes his thoughts about living in DC. A couple weeks ago DCist asked blogger Matthew Yglesias a question that speaks to the way so many residents build conceptual framework for living in DC. From the interview: You're a New Yorker, and some people in D.C.......

TUESDAY In her work in the New Yorker, Daphne Merkin writes with a head-on style that tosses concern for political correctness to the wind and, just as often, polarizes readers, especially across the feminist spectrum. She’ll be holding court at the J tonight on the topic of the rebranding of Jewish identity and culture along hipster lines. DCJCC, 1529 16th Street NW, 7:30 pm. For tickets, call 888-621-2230 or order online at www.nextbook.org. WEDNESDAY Jared......

With three blogs, Matthew Yglesias is one of the more prolific progressive political bloggers out there. The 24-year-old writer for The American Prospect, who hails from New York City, has also, since he moved to D.C. a few years ago, been dubbed by just about everybody as either a "rising star" or "up-and-coming pundit." Yglesias took time to chat with DCist over email about everything from the D.C. blog scene to Gilbert Arenas.......