Photo by AWard Tour
FRIDAY
ZOO: Since it’s after Thanksgiving (though only one day after), we guess it’s okay that the National Zoo (3001 Connecticut Avenue NW) is kicking off its annual holiday lights show, Zoolights, tonight. 5-9 p.m. Free.
BURLESQUE: Red Palace (1212 H Street NE) is shutting its doors at year’s end, but at least it’s going out of business in kinky style. The Sticky Buns Burlesque show brings in Baltimore’s “most bizarre” burlesque performers. 9 p.m. $12.
RUN, DOROTHY!: The Music Center at Strathmore (5301 Tuckerman Lane North Bethesda) renews its “Classic Albums Live” series with a orchestral performance of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon. Unclear if the concert will be accompanied by the first 42 minutes and 59 seconds of The Wizard of Oz, but you can always provide your own visuals by dropping a bunch of acid before the show. 8 p.m. Tickets $28-38. (Bring your own LSD, obviously.)
SATURDAY
HOLIDAY MARKET: Silver Spring’s Fenton Street Market is usually open only between April and October, but this year it’s staying late for the holidays, at least for a few days. The market, featuring 75 vendors hocking their small-batch foodstuffs and artisanal wares, will be open the Saturday after Thanksgiving and again on December 22, the last Saturday before Christmas.
JOB CREATORS: Bummed out by the chaos at shopping malls? Or, do you do your big-ticket shopping online, like a normal person? Instead of waging fisticuffs over the last Xbox 360 at Best Buy, consider dropping some money at a local merchant on Small Business Saturday, an American Express promotion that encourages shoppers to take their business to small, locally owned stores and restaurants. (Provided they all accept American Express, natch.) Check this website for participating business.
XMAS HIPSTERS: Once upon a time, Sufjan Stevens was supposed to record an album for all 50 states. OK, OK, it was a gimmick and he stopped after Michigan and Illinois, and now he mostly just makes Christmas music. Stevens’ latest set of holiday songs are on the recently released five-disc set Silver & Gold, featuring traditional hymns like “Ave Maria” (with liner notes crediting the lyrics to “God Himself”) and weird original stuff, like the 13-minute, Joy Division-sampling “Christmas Unicorn.” He’ll be playing a bunch of it at the 9:30 Club (815 V Street). 7 p.m. Sold out, but check for scalpers.
SUNDAY:
PUNK COLLECTIVISM: The Long Island-based punk and ska collective Bomb the Music Industry! is supposedly winding things down after eight years of upending the music scene with its DIY ethos and fuck-all attitude. Its frontman, Jeff Rosenstock, said earlier this year that the current tour will likely be the last. After the tour, they’ll just let fate carry them, or, as they wrote on their website, “We are beautiful complicated fucking snowflakes that blow wherever the wind takes us and you better fucking respect that shit, maaaan.” Those beautiful complicated fucking snowflakes play their final D.C. show at the Black Cat (1811 14th Street NW) at 8 p.m. Tickets $10.
