Pitchfork has a rich article Fugazi's Joe Lally having thousands of dollars worth of equipment stolen from his touring van while it was parked on Valencia Street. Overnight. Fugazi's Joe Lally and Philly's Capillary Action were enjoying a nice stop over in San Francisco following a shared gig on their current tour when tragedy struck. November 16, between the hours of 3-10 a.m. on the corner of Valencia Street and Clinton Park, someone broke into......

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......

-- Aaah! Rosebud: This re-telling of Citizen Kane involves a "an evil sled, competitive curlers, an aspiring diva, and soul-devouring zombies." See, if Wells had jus incorporated those things into Kane, he might have won the Best Picture Oscar. The curtain goes up at 8 p.m. at New Langton Arts, 1246 Folsom (at Eighth Street); $20-$25. -- Squaretape, Little Yellow Perfect, and Downtown Harvest: Local synth-rock band, Little Yellow Perfect; Squaretape, whose latest album......

Phillyist Jill (who compiles half of those Week Around The Ists posts for all of us in the Gothamist network) sends along some info about a nationwide memoir contest that they're sponsoring out of Philadelphia -- so those of you frustrated (or successful!) This American Life aspirants, start mining your childhood for poignantly-insightful anecdotes! This is all part of the autobiographical-supporting First Person Arts' Sixth Annual Memoir-Writing Contest, and this year's theme this year is......

There's so much going on across the Ist-a-Verse that it's almost impossible to keep track these days. Fortunately, we do it so you don't have to! Londonist took a walk through Oliver Twist's London, thanks to a gorgeous map layer for Google Earth. They also caught up with modern-day fictional London, with the Fantastic Four and 28 Weeks Later. It was a week of insanity over at DCist. They started the week off with......

Last time we were back in Philly, we saw some random gas station in the middle of nowhere that had a biodiesel fueling station. When we saw it, we were amazed that some city not known for its forward-thinkingness had one and San Francisco, the cutting edgiest of cutting edge cities, had none. Well now there's one. ...

With all that went down this week, we thought we thought we'd cheer everyone up by giving everyone a double dose of dogs. It was a rollercoaster ride of emotions this week at DCist. Like the rest of country, we were floored by the news of so many dead coming out of Virginia Tech, and with so many of the victims and their relatives from the D.C. area, we felt it important to pay......

As a Vans salesman recently told us, "Yo, Sis, this is fresh!" Maybe so. Tonight, learn about graffiti street artists as SF360 Film+Club returns to Mezzanine to celebrate the URB Next 100 Issue with a screening of Doug Pray’s film, Infamy. The film is an intense journey into the dangerous lives and obsessed minds of six of America’s most prolific graffiti artists. Doug Pray (“Hype!” and “Scratch”) teamed up with writer, publisher, and graffiti guru......

We'd like to start this week's run-down by wishing a very happy birthday to parent blog Gothamist, which turned four on Friday. If it wasn't for them, the rest of us wouldn't be here. They celebrated their birthday by nabbing an interview with Entourage star Adrian Grenier, who misses NYC public transportation when he's working in LA. They also reported on NYU students protesting a band whose name is also known as a slur,......

-The Warriors lost to the Charlotte Bobcats last night, 98-90. You can't really get too upset about the game as the Warriors are on the longest road trip of the season and played a game in Philly the night before. Most teams in that situation would lose. Not so good is that they are 1-3 on this road trip. -Sharks beat up on the Blackhawks 4-2. They're still having problems with their power play (0-6)......

In our latest episode, we examine the weaknesses that led to the exit of each franchise that was tossed from the playoffs last wknd. Going into last wknd’s action, there were no “complete” teams left – only those who had outweighed their weaknesses enough to advance to the NFL’s Divisional Playoff Round. ...

-Jeff Tedford gets a contract extension, Ray Ratto is already thinking he's gone. -Golden State is hoping to finally win a game in LA. -Nancy Gay isn't very impressed with the QB play this playoff season. Ira Miller, however, is loving the Brady/Manning matchup but not loving his Baltimore/Philly Superbowl prediction. And David Schoen dreads the thought of Peyton Manning winning. -The Giants have a new scoreboard. -Is James Lofton your new Raiders coach? Does......

Stumbled across two bad ideas while walking through the Powell cable car area....

We've been east all week and pretty much braving the world without Internet access. All week, we've been reading the occasional newspaper and gotten the occasional glance at ESPN and have searched desperately to see if there was news, any news, about the Giants as they bravely sail the free agent seas. We didn't see anything. Instead, we saw one not-so-great free agent after another get signed by teams that were definitely not the Giants. Finally, once back in somewhat civilized climes (Philly) we checked on the latest word on the Orange & Black and saw that the Giants have been busy signing free agents-- Dave Roberts and Rich Aurilia (Richie!). Also supposedly on their way to San Francisco: Mark Loretta and right-hander David Weathers (no relation to Carl Weathers). In other words, wha? ...

>The music event of the Fall season is the world premiere of a new piano concerto, Atlantic Crossings, by South-African composer Kevin Volans, composed for one of the great piano performers of the moment, Marc-André Hamelin and conducted by our own Michael Tilson Thomas. Marc-André is a 40 something Quebecois, who now lives in Philly and who kindly has agreed to answer our questions. ...

It's Week Three of the National Football League's 2006 regular season. Here's what happening with your Niners and Raiders. ...

As we sat down to write this week's Best of the -ists post, a car blaring "21 Questions'" passed by our house. And that started us thinking about how some of the best -ist posts out there have at their hearts questions, some of which are answered, and some of which are left open. Check out the Best of the -ists from this week, and see if you agree. Londonist answers the questions "How much......

Even though we are way way past school age, we still get a little melancholy at the close of summer. Fortunately, our friends across the -ist network know that the shenanigans don't need to end just because the big yellow buses are back on the roads. So, grab your sunscreen and your favorite hangover cure, as we take a tour of end of summer fun from -ist cities all over the damn place. SFist Tourist......

Celebrate Ben Franklin's 300th birthday with the Bikini Bandits and Phillyist! (NSFW). Speaking of Mr. Franklin, send in a picture of Ben (or Ed Rendell) with a red tongue and win a free t-shirt. And they might have the next YearlyKos in Philly. You know who's going to be upset about those Bikini Bandits? The Houston school system. Houstonist also reports on some redevelopment shenanigans over a landmark theater. LAist's sex advice column on......

Hey, have y'all been using our new "Recommend this" feature at the bottom of each post? This week we're bringing you the "Most Recommended" posts from across the -ist world, as well as recommending some of our own. Phillyist thinks that readers recommended this post the most because "most of our quieter readers (probably) agree with us that rude commenting sucks." Know what else sucks? Philly's not getting the Olympics, but they are getting thinner.......

Torontoist immediately wins our heart by using the word "Jackass" in a headline. In fact, we love their use of it so much that we're going to use it as much as possible throughout this post. For example, it looks like there are Toronto-area jackasses besides those who misuse the sidewalk: look at the crap on sale on Toronto's craigslist. But it looks like Toronto doesn't contain the kind of jackasses who pee in public......

LAist is flashing a sad peace out to their editor Carolyn Kellogg with one hand and bumping knuckles with their new head typist L.A. blogger king Tony Pierce with the other. Where do ist editors go when they hang up the 'editorial we'? They take on MySpace, apparently. At least Ben Brown does. Austinist reminds of the just rewards of less savory careers this week and then they witness the Arctic Monkeys and We Are......

LAist has so much fun this week! They go to E3, where they overhear the timeless remark "Man, this is where nerdy girls get laid." Is that a promise? They also give us this week's best CDs and make us realize that LA is the best place to use Zillow. Ah, Houstonist. They're biking to work, that is, if they can figure out how to get there. That's right, Mapquest says "Houston had the......

Tonight, the Great Home Run Chase of '06 continues, as Barry will start against the Chicago Cubs, one home run behind the Babe. Oh, and the Giants try and climb out of the last-place hole they've dug themselves into, but nevermind that. Barry put himself one away with a monstorous, humongous, epic shot last Sunday night in Philly that still has people buzzing. In typical Barry fashion, after launching the home run and actually talking to the press, he blew all of that good press by refusing to sign the home run ball a fan caught. He did, however, make the fan sign a release form so he could appear on Barry's reality show. ...

Shanghaiist probably knows a little more about China than the Chicago Sun-Times. Giving them the benefit of the doubt on that one. The city does to have a music scene. Don't even front like they don't. They also have Dorito bananas and white guys shopping for wives. What they don't have is any more tolerance for jaywalkers. Bostonist sees Boston and Somerville each whip out their art and face off. A plagiarized novel is the......

It looks like Bud Selig's Barry Bonds voodoo doll is working as last night, before the Giants 2-0 victory over the Brewers, Barry was bonked on the head by a foul ball in batting practice. After all, having Barry hit 715 in the Home of Bud would be the worst possible PR debacle, not to mention total karma. The ball was hit by rookie Kevin Fransden, already making a name for himself with his bone-headed base-running blunders and propensity for being hit by pitches, who joked that he was expecting his locker to be cleared out after batting practice was over. The whole thing was so weird and out-of-nowhere that nobody reacted or did anything until Barry went down on the ground and was treated by the Giants' trainers. ...

Yeah, the Giants lost the season opener last night 6-1 as Jake Peavy shut the Black & Orange down, but that, of course, isn't what everyone is talking about. In something that should be par for the course this season, anything the Giants do will have two components to it-- how the Giants do and what happens to Barry. Barry lined the first pitch he saw for a double and scored the first Giants' run of the season (brought in by Lance Niekro, hopefully a good omen) but didn't do much else...

Phillyist notes a fistfight between local pols that leaves one man down for the count. Jehovah's Witnesses get a Philly contributor out of bed, things get a little geeky with a film festival and geeky gets taken to a whole new galaxy when they talk with the Dragon Queen of the Dark Kingdom. Shanghaiist gets all excited this week over a new nightclub in the city unfortunately named "Snatch" and Mike Tyson is scheduled to......

Torontoist throws down the gauntlet and challenges all comers: pillow fight, bitch. They also stand up for a fellow blogger taking heat from the TTC and welcome city-wide WiFi. SFist can finally admit it: It's possible that Bary Bonds juiced. Is Bay Area artist (tempted to put quotes around that) Thomas Kinkaid "kinda crappy" or "explosively crappy" or does he just like marking territory? SFist wonders. Technology comes in the form of new Mac goodness......

We were just talking about how much we love food competitions! San Jose's own competitive eater Joey Chestnut has kicked off the Super Bowl in style, winning the annual Wing Bowl competition in Philly by eating 173 chicken wings over the course of the day. All wings must be stripped -- strict rule. Chestnut qualified for the competition by drinking a gallon of milk in 41 seconds. The Wing Bowl is a pre-Super Bowl tradition, and has been running since 1993. This year was the "Virgin Bowl," because for the first time, past winners were excluded from competition, meaning that our favorite competitive eater (scroll to 7/9/05, for a sample of our bloggery in the pre-SFist days), Sonya The Black Widow Thomas, couldn't re-eat her way to the top this go-around. Local boy Joey Chestnut is considered a breakout rookie on the competitive eating circuit, coming in third in this year's Coney Island hot dog competition, second only to The Black Widow and the famous Kobayashi. Chestnut's beaten Thomas once before, in the Waffle House waffle-off (18.5 waffles in 10 minutes), and almost beat Kobayashi in this year's Krystal burger competition (and was even leading him at one point, the first time in competitive eating history that anyone's outeaten Kobayashi). He's considered a lock for the prestigious title of competitive eating rookie of the year. ...