>> This week's arts pick goes to the Curator's Office, who will be hosting performance artist Kathryn Cornelius in her first private gallery solo show, Common Ground. Cornelius, who has taken her wry performances around the world, will display two videos and two photograph series that show her searching for a kind of inner spirituality in an overconnected, digital world. Jeffry Cudlin writes in the exhibit brochure, "In these pieces, Cornelius appears silent, collected......

Today’s kids probably think rappers have always been purveyors of commercial goods. 50 Cent has Vitamin Water. Diddy and Burger King are partners. Common probably even folds every shirt at The Gap. However, there was a time when rappers weren’t viable salespeople because their music wasn’t reaching a broad segment of the population. In 1990, a Bay Area entertainer who went by the moniker MC Hammer helped set rap on track to be a cultural......

Sad but true: the Post has some great coverage of the closing night at Common Share on Friday. The bar, located on 18th Street NW south of the Adams Morgan strip and just north of Florida Avenue, was one of the cheaper places in the city, with beers going for $2. While there are rumors that the bar may reopen elsewhere, possibly the H Street NE strip, we'll sure miss the inexpensive brew and laid......

Happy first weekend of September - and happy Labor Day weekend, too, for our American cities! Let's take a look at what's been happening around the Ist-a-verse. The deaths of two firefighters shook Bostonist this week. Boston's firefighters bent over backwards all week long - first, they fought flames pouring from the Boston Tea Party museum, and then a restaurant fire killed two and injured many more. Their efforts make everything else - like Tom......

By DCist contributor John Harlow Created and organized by artist and curator Mark Tribe, the Port Huron Project is a series of reenactments of protest speeches from the New Left movements of the 1960s and '70s, conducted at their original locations by paid performers. Previous PHP events have featured enactments of speeches originally delivered by Coretta Scott King and Howard Zinn in New York and Boston respectively. Tomorrow at 6 p.m., the National Mall will......

The particulars were leaked a while ago, but that doesn't make it any less sweet: the Capitals are unveiling their new jerseys tonight, and we have to say that they look fantastic. The style of the new sweaters mimics certain aspects of their traditional jersey (worn from 1974-1995), such as the solid red base and the emphasized hockey stick as the letter "t". Though bloggers Uni Watch gave the Caps a mixed review for......

Monday >> Milwaukee-based indie pop quartet Maritime will be bringing their brand of sweet melodies to the Rock and Roll Hotel accompanied by the Swervedriver-inspired rock of Kansas City's The Life and Times. We rarely get to make a Swervedriver reference, so enjoy it while you can. 8 p.m. >> Drive-By Truckers' frontman Patterson Hood drops by the area for a show at the Birchmere in Alexandria. If you're not familiar with the live stylings......

Common sense took a bit of a beating today, courtesy of the Washington Redskins and D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams. As we learned from NBC 4 this morning, city officials and confidants of team owner Dan Snyder have started exploring the prospect of building the team a new stadium on the RFK site. Council-member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) and lame-duck Williams have tacitly endorsed the idea, with Williams noting: I've talked to him [Snyder] a couple......

The Smithsonian Insititution announced Monday that it will install a Common Wireless Access System in phases over the next two years, a step which means both free wireless Internet and improved mobile phone reception in and around their museums. The announcement comes 2 years after non-profit Open Park began a push to provide Wi-Fi across the National Mall, which resulted in three hotspots in the area — a good start, but without the Smithsonian's cooperation......

We're three weeks from the September 12 District primaries, the contest that will decide who will square off against who in November's general election (even though Democrats invariably win the majority of contested seats, the Republican and Statehood Green parties also field candidates). And given the sheer number of candidates running in some races -- the Ward 5 seat is being contested by 13 people; Ward 3 by 10 -- getting all the information necessary......

It was around this time last year that we collectively mourned the fact that the District just doesn't have very many good bagel shops. Spare the few options most of us could name off the tops of our heads, we realized that within the confines of the city, there seemed to be a relative paucity of bagel providers. And now, a year later, we add one more bagelry to the list, and it's in an......

Last week we reported that D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams takes in $152,000 in compensation, a salary some viewed as excessive and others as not excessive enough. But if this is how much we currently judge the city's chief executive to be worth, what would we pay, let's say, the chief librarian? A lot more, as news has it. The Common Denominator reported on Friday that the D.C. Board of Library Trustees decided to hire Ginnie......

If there is one thing that elected officials know, it's that they probably won't get rich while they remain in government. Well, unless they swindle the taxpayers of loads of money and jet off to a country that has no extradition treaty with the U.S., of course. But that notwithstanding, how much are certain elected officials really making? And is it enough, or is it too much? Today The Common Denominator, an independent local newspaper,......

The parking battle that's been brewing around Logan Circle between double-parking church-goers and neighboring residents appears ready to come to a head. The city government has set this Sunday, April 23, as the date on which parking enforcement is to begin, and area churches are planning to hold a rally in protest on that day at 2 p.m. in Logan Circle. This week's Common Denominator was able to speak with some area ministers and......

It was a few months back that we explored the issue of access to restrooms in Metrorail stations. Or, to be more exact, the lack of access. Common wisdom holds that you always go before you decide to hop on a train, unless you're the type to risk holding it for 17 minutes as you painfully wait for that Green Line train to show up. But now Fairfax County may be taking legal action to......

Facing a growing shortage of affordable housing in the District, members of the D.C. City Council yesterday introduced legislation that would strengthen existing rent control laws, reports The Common Denominator. Eleven members of the council joined sponsor Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) in endorsing the legislation, which would limit increases on rent for certain properties to 10 percent per year and restrict the increase of rent on individual units in rent-controlled buildings. The legislation would amend......

This one of those pictures that just makes you stop, makes you wonder, makes you want to ask, "Is that for real?" While we are not discounting the possibility that Council-member Adrian Fenty (D-Ward 4) may be the favored candidate in the much sought after 8-15 age-group, we are guessing that someone's parents are taking next year's mayoral race just a step too far. Hopefully she didn't run into the hyper-active nine-year-old with the......

Mmmmmm, pork. Yesterday President George W. Bush signed into law a transportation bill worth some $286 billion, of which $24 billion will go to fund 6,371 special pet projects for Congressional districts both Democratic and Republican. Any opinions on Congressional pork notwithstanding, we here at DCist were curious -- What did the District reap in this astounding windfall of taxpayer funds? Not much. If California and Illinois got most of the pig themselves (545 earmarks......

Remember the Galileo deal we told you about a few weeks ago? Well, the reviews have started to come in, and though it's crucial to understand that Galileo has a new chef de cuisine, reactions to the new Galileo are generally mixed. After hearing from two distinctly different groups -- a party of seventeen active on the food message boards and the report of one DCist of her experience with three companions -- the words......

Good morning, Washington. Today's lead story needs little introduction, but did deserve a good picture, aptly provided by ponto and posted to Flickr. Cat Owner Declared Unfit: A Northern Virginia woman who owned and hid some 488 cats was forbidden from owning animals ever again, reports the Post. Ruth Knueven, 82, still faces five misdemeanor charges related to 222 dead cats she kept in two townhouses in Fairfax County and for defying police orders that......

MONDAY: >> The definite must-see show this evening is sure to be Q and Not U's performance at Fort Reno. As we reported earlier, the band is breaking up, and this concert will be one of their last. But if you can't make it tonight, don't worry too much - they're playing shows at the Black Cat September 22 and 23. Tonight, the politically-charged hip hop group Son of Nun opens, and the music gets......

The students may not be in the classroom, but District officials and activists are still working to find ways to address the problem of the city's crumbling schools. Legislation currently working its way through the City Council's Finance and Education Committee's would allow the city to borrow up to $1 billion for much-needed school repairs, an issue that has repeatedly dogged D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams and D.C. Schools Superintendent Clifford Janey and may well become......

This photo was posted to DCist photos on Flickr by Justin Johnson of digital obscura. It will be clear becoming cloudy with highs in the low 70s today. Retired Veterans Sue Rumsfeld: Some of the residents of the Armed Forces Retirement Home have filed a class action lawsuit against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, alleging he has made illegal cuts in medical and dental services at the home, the Examiner reports. Shopping Rage in Montgomery......

(From DCist contributor Colleen Egan) For an engaged couple, their upcoming wedding brings thoughts of unity: a merging of lives, families, DVD collections. But for a frequent wedding guest, the pending nuptials can spark a bout of separation anxiety. Separating with your cash, that is. From plane fares to rental cars to hotel rooms, the wedding gift might be the only purchase of which you have control. DCist perused the area to find shops with......

You may be sick of stadium stuff, but there's big news. As in a billion dollars big. Facing pointed questions last Friday at a D.C. City Council hearing convened by Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), District CFO Natwar Gandhi admitted that the total cost of building a new stadium for the Nationals could well top $1 billion. According to The Common Denominator, Marion Barry (D-Ward 8), who supports building a new stadium adjacent to RFK......

FRIDAY: >> If your faux pas have lately been spiraling out of control, head over tout suite to Politics & Prose. This evening at 7 p.m. Judith Martin, aka Miss Manners, will be talking about "Miss Manner's Guide to Excruciatingly Exact Behavior," her newly updated book about modern-day etiquette. >> The Dulles Expo Center gets busy today with the weekend-long Sugarloaf Craft Festival. You can buy everything from well-engineered teddy bears to wood art. Check......

Come May 1, the steadily increasing global price of oil may finally hit home for District residents who cab it to and from home, work and play. Taxi fares are set to increase by up to $1 a trip to offset rising gas prices, reports the Common Denominator. The increases will be implemented for a 120-day trial period, after which the D.C. Taxicab Commission will decide whether to make them permanent. Global oil prices have......

Sure, to you it may just be a cup of joe, or a half-caf soy latté with hazelnut. But for others -- like Ryan Jensen -- it's much, much more. Jensen is a barista at Murky Coffee on Capitol Hill, and this Saturday Jensen gets to show off his barista skills as a competitor in the fourth annual United States Barista Championship. The competition, held in Seattle, will determine the U.S. competitor in the......

In case you didn't catch it yesterday, the 2004-2005 hockey season was officially cancelled, making the NHL the first major professional sport in North America to give up an entire season due to labor negotiations. Most fans aren't surprised, we saw the writing on the wall long ago. Basically the dispute boils down to the salary cap. In the most recent round of negotiations this month, the "cap gap" came down to a $6.5 million......

(From DCist contributor Zoe Mitchell) More buildings in D.C. are coming down soon. However, unlike the convention center implosion which briefly affected traffic in the area, the upcoming closure of the Anacostia, Benning, Tenley-Friendship and Watha T. Daniel/Shaw branches of the DC Library will directly impact D.C. residents for months. According to the Common Denominator, the four community libraries will be closing on Dec. 30 "in preparation for tearing them down to make way for......