>> It’s Halloween! Spooky, Scary! Despite the taxi strike, SoberRide is still offering free taxi rides for people who have had too much to drink celebrating the holiday: If you need a ride home between 8 p.m. tonight and 4 a.m. tomorrow morning, call 1-800-200-TAXI and you should be able to get a free ride home of up to $50. How long you’ll have to wait for that ride is an open question, but…
This review was written by guest poster Eric Nuzum, a local pop culture commentator and author of The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula. Here’s the reason why there have been more than 600 vampire films produced in the past 85 years: Vampires are the perfect metaphor. Tradition says that vampires don’t cast reflections. But vampires are, in fact, reflections of what terrifies or titillates us, as well as what we…
>> The 1900s are playing the Rock and Roll Hotel, not to be confused with the 1990s. Three Stars alum Shortstack will join them on the bill, along with The Dead Trees and Kitty Hawk. $10, 8:30 p.m. >> Tonight at Blues Alley one of the area’s finest jazz drummers, Nasar Abadey, takes the stage with SuperNova, featuring Allyn Johnson on piano, Gary Thomas, Jazz Studies Chair at Peabody, altoist Joe Ford, and bassist…
>> Tickets are still available to see Argentine-Swedish songwriter and solo classical guitar player José González, he of the awesome indie cover songs (and a bunch of originals, too) play the 9:30 Club. Doors 7:30 p.m., $20, with James Blackshaw. >> Washingtonians are, for better or for worse, often defined by their work, so tonight at the Goethe Institut the DC Asian-Pacific-American Film Festival has a collection of shorts related to job issues called…
TUESDAY: Tomorrow is a treasure trove for science and sci-fi junkies. Our reviewer raved about The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula. Hear author Eric Nuzum muse on the undead at Wonderland Ballroom, 1101 Kenyon St. NW, which will offer drink specials, while Olsson’s will have books for sale at the bar. Fangs and capes encouraged. 7 p.m. Over at Politics and Prose, author Ira Flatow will discuss his lengthily titled…
There’s a scene in the action/horror film Blade: Trinity in which a resurrected Dracula, played with a considerable lack of energy by Prison Break’s Dominic Purcell, wanders into a store that sells vampire-themed novelty items. For a second — just before Dracula kills everyone around and the movie switches back to another techno-saturated fight scene — it’s amusing. Where did vampire lore begin and how did it result in countless terrible movies, action figures and…
FRIDAY: >> Bliss, the Black Cat’s indie rock dance party, presents a combination DJ/Live show. Kicking things off will be The Juan Maclean, followed by the always memorable (and not nearly as dead as you might have thought) Edie Sedgwick. 9 p.m., $12. >> We’re all by now familiar with the greatest hits of the Kubrick canon: The Shining, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, etc. But if you’ve never had the…
Not all circuses were created equally. Cirque du Soleil often most closely resembles a play, opera, or dance about a circus, rather than a circus in its own right. Cirque abandons many components of the traditional circus that many people take for granted: you won’t find any animals in here, and all the music is live. Cirque peformances seem to always carry a narrative component that resides somewhere between the surreal and the fairy tale…
MONDAY: Tony Kushner will discuss the plays of Arthur Miller with Jeffrey Brown at the Avalon Theatre, 5612 Connecticut Ave NW. Topics may or may not include who the baddest Jewish playwright of our time really is, and whether anyone who convinced the likes of Marilyn Monroe to convert has any competition in that category to begin wtih. Tickets are $13 each; two tickets are included with the purchase of a book. 8:15 p.m. WEDNESDAY:…
Before delving into the week’s picks, we want to point out a couple of hurricane benefits that are happening this week. This Thursday, come out and support musicians affected by hurricane Katrina. The State Theater in Falls Church hosts the Hell or High Water Benefit, featuring the legendary Chuck Brown. Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door, with all proceeds benefitting the MusiCares Katrina Fund. 7 p.m. If you’re feeling philanthropic as…
