There’s a celebratory service in Maryland and parade in D.C. on Sunday.

The provocative raconteur comes to the DC Improv Thursday night and the Howard Theater next month.

FRIDAY: >> The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception offers its annual Christmas Concert for Charity tonight. The Basilica’s professional choir (featuring our very own DCist Charles!) will perform, followed by the choirs and orchestra of Catholic University. Admission is free, with a free-will donation to benefit the Spanish Catholic Center, a haven for immigrants to the Washington, D.C., area since 1967. The center provides services at locations in Mount Pleasant and…

FRIDAY: Anyone in need of a little funk infusion tonight would do well to check out Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings at Black Cat. The DCist staff list today was full of sentiments like “I’ve heard great things about these guys,” and Jones’ background suggests she probably has more than a passing understanding of the world of soul: She was born in Augusta, Georgia (hometown of James Brown) and spent her teens in Brooklyn, NY….

Almost 43 years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. As his commanding stage presence showed, he was a man of boundless energy — enough to foster a national fervor for racial equality. But where exactly did he get all that energy? Was Wheaties the Breakfast of Civil Rights Champions? No, King liked soul food — at the very least, “not something like…

The D.C. Political Comedy Festival, jointly sponsored by the American Film Institute and American University’s School of Communications kicks off tonight with a sneak preview of John Sayles’s new film Silver City (IMDB) to be followed with a discussion with the director. Both the AFI and American U. have posted schedules of events for the festival, which also includes screenings of Primary Colors (Fri.), Election (Sat.), Wag the Dog (Sun.). All the screenings will be…

Anyone who’s anyone in the human rights sector seems to be getting arrested these days at the Sudanese Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue near Sheridan Circle. Just yesterday, the founders of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream were arrested on the embassy steps protesting the humanitarian crisis in Sudan’s Dafur region, something the House of Representatives classified as “genocide” in a recent resolution. Who will be next? Crosswalk.com says the arrests are becoming “trendy.” Those arrested so…