To celebrate the release of Electric Grace: Still more Fiction by Washington Area Women tonight, editor Richard Peabody and ten of the book’s forty-two contributors will be reading selections from their work at Politics & Prose tonight at 7 p.m. Faye Moskowitz, a memoirist, poet, short story writer and professor, will read from her story “Completo (A Triptych),” from the journal, Story Quarterly. Professor Moskowitz—or just Faye, as she would have it—grew up in Detroit......

Many things seem more important in D.C. than they would be anywhere else. It's pretty difficult to impress somebody in most places by telling them you met the Undersecretary of such and such. Appearing on C-SPAN is more likely to be subject to quizzical looks rather than admiration in other towns. Most folks elsewhere wouldn't know they just saw George Will honking at pedestrians. And obviously, people talk about bills and laws and politics more......

Have you heard? Geeks wish they were hot. Men love their cars, and don't seem to call after a first date. And women have to wait in long lines for the bathroom, while men are stuck waiting around for them to finish shopping. I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, the new Bethesda Theatre's first production, has been playing off-Broadway for, well, forever, and the show doesn't offer any startling revelations into the opposite sex......

Dysfunctional relationship musicals...the Odyssey revisited...a one-nun show...one can't say the D.C. theater scene is relying only on Halloween for their October programming inspiration (though we do, at least, have some Poe still playing). Here's an overview of what's opening this month. Not only a new show, but a new theater! Bethesda Theatre hopes that I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, a relationship musical which has been compared to Seinfeld in its sensibilities, will become......

"Listen, not a year goes by, not a year, that I don't hear about some escalator accident involving some bastard kid which could have easily been avoided had some parent — I don't care which one — but some parent conditioned him to fear and respect that escalator." —Brodie, Mallrats I was conditioned perhaps a little too heavily to fear and respect the escalator. While I had no trouble riding up, getting on from the......

>> While half the DCict staff was still buzzing from this weekend's Dismemberment Plan shows, stereogum chatted with front-man Travis Morrison about his day job as "lead JavaScript programmer for advertisements for the Washington Post website." All of a sudden the Post seems so much cooler. Any other semi-retired rock gods looking for jobs at a D.C. Web site? We can offer you cookies and a handful of DCist temporary tatoos! >> Cops in......

When the afternoon's labor hangs about your neck like so many albatross carcasses, their limp beaks slicked with the sweat of eight hours' worth of futility, when the sun hangs low in the air like a thug-strewn rock on its downward trajectory into the skull of an unsuspecting bicyclist, when the administrative assistant two cubes down sashays off to happy hour, leaving you sick with the thoughts that such a treasured sixty-minute span might ne'er......

Monday >> This past December, Matthew Ryan released his latest album, From A Late Night High-Rise, a collection of songs inspired by the death of his friend and the sentencing of his brother to 30 years in prison. Tonight you can experience his acoustic contemplations on stage at Iota Club with Tim Easton. 8:30 p.m., $12. >> Do you want to see Silver Spring's Flaming Cooters? Did you ever think you would hear those words......

It's almost Black Friday, which means it's about that time where we look at our bank account balance and realize that we barely have enough money for rent, let alone hundreds saved in preparation for Christmas gift-giving. Too bad clay handprints and homemade cards are no longer considered legitimate presents, and our offices, unlike our elementary schools, don't provide "Santa Shops" where we can buy "I Love Mom" mugs and cheaply made ornaments for the......

The District is often compared to our behemoth neighbor of a city to the north, New York. And as much as we hate the comparison -- and the resulting argument -- we may be moving in New York's direction, figuratively speaking. As it turns out, certain folks see a bit of Manhattan moving down south, resulting in a so-called "Manhattanization" of the District. Bloomberg yesterday expounded on this issue in an article titled, "D.C., Once......

FRIDAY: >> The First Ladies DJ Collective hits the Black Cat for Girl Friday: the I Love the 90s version. As their site says, join them to "go back in time to the decade that brought us the Real World, Sassy magazine, babydoll dresses, our first war in Iraq, and not one but three Amy Fisher made-for-tv movies." Ah, Sassy magazine. How we miss it. 10 p.m., $5, backstage. >> Monopoli headlines tonight at Club......

It was an all-European, all-the-time line up last night at the 9:30 Club as DCist headed out to see a bill of Long-View, a group from Manchester, Scottish quintet Dogs Die In Hot Cars and Parisian band Phoenix. Though we'd been hearing some buzz surrounding all three groups, especially following Long-View and DDIHC's recent performances at SXSW, we went into the concert without any expectations, but came out pleasantly surprised. The best word we......

If we weren't all going to die from this apparently massive, apocalyptic snowstorm that is going to eat our pets and start the second Ice Age, these are the shows we'd be going to see. Where are your musical destinations this week? MONDAY: >> The Finn Brothers, Kiwi nationals of Split Enz and Crowded House fame, take the stage with their classic pop and harmonies at the Birchmere. 7:30 p.m., $29.50. >> If the snow......

DCist has been an REM fan since they were young and impressionable, so it's almost impossible for us to be objective about Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills. Last night's show at DAR Constitution Hall was a fun, lively and politically charged concert that hinged more on lead singer Michael Stipe's personality then the music. The band tore through a mix of old and new songs, sticking with their political activist theme for the......