The following post is from our advertiser, This American Life on Showtime. This American Life, the Showtime Original Series based on the celebrated Ira Glass radio show, is back with an all-new season. Funny, dramatic and surprising real-life stories from the most extraordinary ordinary people in America come together in what Newsweek proclaims “a jewel of a TV series.” From a stand-up comedy camp for kids, to riding stables in a North Philly ghetto; from......

“So the thing you have to understand is this is radio,” says the voice in the darkness — a little bit squeaky, a little bit nasal, not at all the voice you’d assign to the leader of a benign radio cult if it weren't already so familiar. Ira Glass, creator and host of the weekly public radio story anthology This American Life, begins all his speaking engagements this way. That opening line is always good......

FOUND Magazine has a knack for revealing the beautiful underbelly of America, the forgotten parts of our everyday lives. Highlighting things like the hateful note you left the person parked in your precious parking spot, your laundry list of to-dos, that love note you didn’t find the courage to send, or those rejection letters that you didn’t want to hold onto, FOUND is the curated hamper for everything not worth collecting. That is unless you......

If you were traveling over the holiday weekend, you would have easily missed the announcement that popular local NPR affiliate WAMU 88.5 FM will be making big changes to their broadcast schedule -- most notably moving the entirety of their popular weekend bluegrass programming to an HD Radio channel, leaving many listeners upset and confused as to how the station could abandon their signature music programs on the regular FM dial. Here's what's going to......

The phrase “review-proof” usually denotes some property so universally recognizable and demonstrably saleable that no amount of critical huffing and puffing can possibly derail its commercial invincibility. Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind is something else. Yeah, it’s an established property, at least in Chicago, homebase of its creators, the Neo-Futurists. (Think the Groundlings, except less obsessed with getting on Saturday Night Live.) The hometown show has been up and running for at......

Between the creepy name and the glowing spermatozoa in the logo, readers can be forgiven for looking at the graphic on the right and assuming that washingtonpost.com is dabbling in creating Frankensteinian abominations/superbeings. Perhaps an alien/Katharine Graham hybrid that can squeeze secrets out of administration sources with its deadly tentacles? There's room for all sorts of mischief in that Arlington skyscraper. Sadly, that's not the case. The project, entitled "onBeing", is actually a new series......

In its first weekend, the Capital Fringe Festival turned downtown D.C. into a moveable feast of performance, as show after show made its Fringe debut. As we enter Day Five of the festival, it’s now time to go get a second helping—a show you want to see again or a show your friends have told you is a must-see. Even still, a handful of shows will get their start today. At DCist, we’d love to......

FRIDAY: For many of us, going to see Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion” recorded live was one of the few times in our early teens when both we and our parents could agree on attending the same event without rancor. But Keillor's getting up there, and it seems more likely we'll be sharing "This American Life" or even some yet-to-be produced program with our own kids. For now, thank goodness, Keillor and company are......

This Monday will bring the first installment of the F.W. Thomas Performances, and you, gentle DCist readers, are largely to blame. The series, which bills itself as a "monthly literary variety show featuring live presentations from area writers, artists and musicians," was started in part because of the great turnout for a reading by writers John Hodgman, Adam Mazmanian and others here in D.C. in December — an event that we're told DCist readers showed......

FRIDAY >> We've long been fans of John Hodgman, the "former professional literary agent" turned "professional writer" who doles out "advice" in his regular column in McSweeney's (and occassional appearances on This American Life). Tonight Hodgmania will take hold at Warehouse Theater, as the writer reads from his new book, The Areas of My Expertise, a sort of compendium of completely made-up "history" and "facts." Listen to Hodgman read the 700 Hobo Names You Requested......