This month the area's museums are chock full of celebrations, openings, anniversaries and festivals. Enough to keep your dance card filled and your brain active. >> The Natural History Museum describes the ocean as "a huge, awesome realm -- sometimes mysterious but always amazing." Their interpretation of the "awesome realm" will be shown in the long awaited opening of the Sant Ocean Hall on September 27. The exhibit represents the largest renovation in the......

Dig It! The Secrets of Soil exhibit photo courtesy of John Steiner, Smithsonian Institution. With August's abrupt arrival, summer session is almost over. Even if you’ve been done with school for ages, you may still want to keep that brain sharp, if only to make yourself sound interesting at parties. While most of the area’s galleries are a bit out-of-commission, the museums are still packing in the events. >> Recently opened on July 18......

>> The Rock and Roll Hotel hosts Austin's electro-indie Octopus Project and Shout Out Out Out Out. $10, 8:30 p.m. >> Rustico in Alexandria is bringing back its delightfully insane Don't Hassel the Hof Brau party, which honors Munich's famous Hofbrau Oktoberfest beer as well as perennial German favorite and noted drunk entertainer, David Hasselhoff. Free Hofbrau mugs with every beer, and our own beer guy, Eric Denman, will be tending bar and sporting......

Would you be willing to pay $25 for a photograph of yourself standing next to someone who looks eerily similar to your favorite celebrity? That's the question you'll want to answer before venturing in to the new Madame Tussauds wax museum at 10th and F Streets NW, which opens to the public today. Last night, DCist attended the opening party for the attraction. We say attraction purposefully, because Madame Tussauds isn't a museum at......

We wanted to remind you about this weekend's upcoming photo contest sponsored by DCist and non-profit Cultural Tourism DC as part of the semi-annual WalkingTown DC event. On Sept. 29, photographers are encouraged to attend any of the free walking tours on offer as part of WalkingTown DC, and enter their photos to win great prizes. Details and rules below, and also feel free to sign up for the unofficial Flickr group. Here's the deal:......

DCist is once again an official media sponsor of the free walking tours offered twice a year by non-profit Cultural Tourism DC. This time around, WalkingTown DC, a day-long event scheduled for Sept. 29, is teaming up with us to sponsor a photo contest to encourage people to come out to the free tours and snap photos as you explore new neighborhoods. Here's the deal: * Attend any WalkingTown DC tour on Sept. 29 and......

Remember the days of the Cold War, when Soviet and American diplomats would slyly meet in D.C. restaurants to share some moo shu in between bringing the world to the edge of nuclear annihilation? It seems the days of Spy vs. Spy aren't as far in the past as we'd like to think. As you've no doubt heard, on March 1 Paul Joyal, an expert on Russian intelligence, was shot outside his Adelphi, Maryland home,......

TUESDAY Dreckifying The Shop Around the Corner notwithstanding, Nora Ephron has a solid track record of bringing the funny. Why so wistful, then, Nora? Find out tonight at Politics and Prose as she discusses I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman. 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW., 7 p.m. If you can’t make it, she’ll be making another D.C. stop Wednesday at the District of Columbia Jewish Community Center, 16th &......

If you haven't made your way down to Gallery Place today, you're missing quite the celebration. The Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery opened their doors today after a six year renovation. Dancers, puppet-masters, Andy Warhol impersonators and live bands are ushering in the new era for the former Patent Office Building. Oh, and the free ice cream is nice, too. After the ribbon cutting ceremony this morning, residents and tourists......

Restaurant bars are uneven. Some are great places to tip one back, while others are glorified waiting rooms full of eager would-be diners. Recently we had the pleasure of learning that the bar at Zola falls into the former category. Adjacent to the International Spy Museum, Zola features a modern, cool interior that only nominally follows the theme of subterfuge. Walls are decorated with various lines of what we think was code, either in......

Since the death of Visions, the District has been sorely lacking in genuine art house cinema fare. But a brief sweep of the summer film landscape has turned up a much more eclectic and inviting set of mid-week options than we would have guessed, from well chosen special screenings at familiar venues to intriguing, less obvious options. Get it while the gettin's good: art houses everywhere seem to be going the way of the gray......