Festival season embeds itself in our social life this week and makes a mockery of our diary – it’s all illegible scribblings, strike-throughs, and exclamation points. Whilst we attempt to sort ourselves out, let’s see what sense we can make of the week ahead in literary London for you... Monday: Bebop hep-cats (that’s right, hep-cats) converge on the Troubadour tonight to celebrate the 1950s poetry scene (8pm, £6/£5 concessions); biographers Anne Sebba and Andrew......

Photograph of investigation at Times Square recruiting center by kerfuffle & zeitgeist on Flickr Gothamist found that an explosive set off outside the Times Square army recruiting center may be similar to five past bombings in New York City.Seattlest worried when severed right feet and bottles of rat poison started washing up on local beaches.Shanghaiist was surprised by Bjork's rooting for Tibetan independence at her concert (see video), and the political fallout has only......

Seeing is quite a big part of our day, reading the news, figuring out public transport and attempting to match our clothes, so we plan on doing whatever we can to keep our vision as long as possible. Luckily, doctors at Moorfields Eye Hospital, led by Professor Vis Viswanathan, have developed a new, painless test to spot glaucoma -- also scarily know as the "silent blinding disease" -- in its early stages. The Moorfields Motion......

Photo by Andy Sternberg/LAist A posthumous tribute wall dedicated to singer/songwriter Elliot Smith sat defaced by graffiti for months on end -- LAist said enough, so did the fans and city council.SFist was surprised to learn that chronic presidential candidate Ralph Nader picked former San Francisco Supervisor Matt Gonzalez as his running mate.Phillyist explored the possibilities of green cleaning.In the latest edition of Reel Toronto, a bi-weekly feature looking at films shot in Toronto......

Photo by Phillyist's Matt Johnson, SkyscraperSunset.com, December 19, 2007. Phillyist explored an impending implosion and lived to tell the tale.Gothamist marveled at the city's new NYC-branded condom campaign - especially the use of a Toronto landmark in the advertising. (Also, fun fact: Gothamist turned five years old yesterday.)Tired of the worldwide Scientology protests? Torontoist totally isn't: they covered the big downtown protest the day it happened, and followed up with an examination of all......

Photograph of Michael Strahan, coach Tom Coughin (holding the Vince Lombardi trophy) and quarterback and Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning by Tien Mao Gothamist was amazed after the Giants won the Super Bowl, the city went wild, and it witnessed a ticker-tape parade.Barack Obama drew 20,000+ ahead of Seattle’s Saturday caucus.Londonist had Super Tuesday too.Elusive guerrilla street artist Banksy revisits Los Angeles.After the Patriots lost the Super Bowl and came this close to making......

A very special simultaneous live broadcast scheduled for this Friday by the BBC World Service is going to pitch London, New York, Toronto and Sydney against one another for the position of best role model for a multicultural city. The BBC World Service is currently hosting London Week which started on Saturday 18 August and will run until Saturday 25 August. While the World Serice isn't a Londoner's usual radio hangout, it's worth tuning......

FTSE in bad way. LHR not AOK. Mum 2 MJ's kids? No. Brick Lane in Toronto. Llelvis in town. Image of Tim, the minimalist lion at Buckingham Palace courtesy of James Michael Hill on Flickr.......

Londonist loves Facebook, and we knew we weren't alone. The rest of London seems to agree with us. Last week, London beat out Toronto for the top geographic network on the hugely popular social networking site. According to the Guardian, as of Friday there were 790,615 members in the London Network. By our reckoning, today there are 819,908 London members, compared with 708,268 in Toronto, the next most popular network. The jump of 29,293......

LAist was comped front row seats by the Dodgers due to Malingering being struck by a foul ball last week, and she came back with some great photos, and earlier made fun of 4th of July on Venice Beach. But the biggest stories of the week was that the Mayor's Hot Tamale was revealed, and that a Kwik-E-Mart was erected in Burbank. Phillyist was busy doing the Fourth of July up right, exercising their......

The latest play from Canadian playwright extraordinaire, Judith Thompson, Enoch Arden in the Hope Shelter combines poetry and music to offer us a brief glimpse into the lives of those we only notice through the corners of our eyes. Taking as starting point Richard Strauss’ 1898 melodrama Enoch Arden, itself based on Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s 1864 poem of them same name, Thompson has written a contemporary story that suggests art as haven from harsh......

Seattlest has a talk with the photographer from last week's "Segway Mom" and then experiences some dissension in the ranks over the question of wine vs. beer. It's not West Side Story, but about as close as they'll get. They're also still waiting on some inbox relief after a spammer is arrested. As Chicagoist counts down the days to its third anniversary party, they found all-organic pizza to be underwhelming amidst the hoopla, tried......

Every Sunday for the past nine weeks, Advice Booth has been open for business on Brick Lane. Questions ranging from the mundane ("why doesn’t he like me?") to the philosophical ("what is beauty?") will be answered in exchange for £1. Following an in-depth discussion, customers are given a lollipop and a typewritten piece of paper, outlining the advice. The Booth also has a refund policy, which means that if you are dissatisfied with the......

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......

We briefly introduced Dragonette last year when we went to see them at Ghetto, and since then they've gone from strength to strength. Dragonette are Dan, Martina, Joel and Will. From Toronto, the band have been based in London for the last year or so while writing and recording their debut album of sleazy sounding electro-pop. Competition is their piece de resistance. A slinky song about "fucking your girlfriend", Martina blissfully sings "Goodness I......

Between fake terrorist alerts and scandals big and small, this just might be the Best Best of the -ists ever. We're exhausted just thinking about it. First up, SFist, who saw their little 'ole site be the center of what was a nice little scandal (even getting their editor on TV) only to find their scandal dwarfed by the even bigger scandal caused by their Mayor boffing one of his aides' wife. We're not......

If there's one band that made us squeal repeatedly during 2006 it was Toronto's Metric. Signed to Drowned in Sound in the UK, Emily Haines and her boys have managed to release two of the finest indie albums of recent years as well as working regularly with the likes of Stars and Broken Social Scene. With hard riffs, unforgettable hooks and snarky female vocals, the one thing we urge you to do today, is......

Happy Holidays! Chances are, you're reading this the day after Christmas, back at your day job after all-too-short a holiday, and the last thing you want from us is stuff about the holidays. But that's just too bad. Because, see, here in the Ist-A-Verse, we do things ahead of time. It might be December 26 for you, but that's what you get for not checking your Favorite Local Blog on Christmas Eve. Austinist is......

Ticket from Toronto: £299. Getting your song chosen for a Mastercard ad: Priceless. Last Thursday Findlay Brown, whose song Come Home is currently playing to millions of TV viewers daily in the Christmas Mastercard advert, joined a folksy line-up of four artists in the space of three hours at the awe-inspiring Union Chapel in Islington. With a half-hour slot at the start of the evening, Brown had to contend with latecomers and lots of......

Before we begin, we'd like to extend our deepest sympathies to the family of James Kim. We are not, by any means, trying to discount that tragedy by juxtaposing posts about the Kims with more light-hearted posts. It's the nature of doing a compilation such as this one: we're trying to give a full slice of the goings-on in the Ist-a-Verse: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Londonist wants you to know where to......

If you're hiking, consider charging up your iPod, as Seattlest finds out that a man lost during a hike was found by the glow of his iPod. That cleverness seems to be devoid in cops who were using police cruiser instant messaging clients - although we imagine IMs "so are you nakie" to be included in cop shows, just for realism. If only the cops were busting the Hummer-driving jerk who made a poor......

Let's take a look back at a week that raised this Zen koan: if Kevin Federline got into a wrestling ring with a wrestler, who would you root for? Austinist was in an entertainment state of mind as they covered the dickens out of the Austin Film Festival, depicted all the Big 12 football coaches as South Park characters, and interviewed Jose Gonzalez. Chicagoist talked about the passion as they bid adieu to Bell......

Arsenal Reserves 1 Chelsea Reserves 2 Underhill, Barnet Monday 16th October 2006 We hope someone points the Ashes hosts, fretting over the English hooligan menace, in the direction of the behaviour of several hundred souls locked out of Monday night’s Arsenal v Chelsea reserve football fixture. Londonist was amongst the men, women and many children thronging the gates of Barnet’s Underhill stadium for half an hour after the 7pm kick off in perfect, almost......

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......

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......

Even as the stores sport back to school sales (which depress us, even now), summer lingers on your friends the -ists. This week's collection of links provides some of the best, worst, and oddest bits of summer fun. So, bring your laptop up onto the roof, make yourself an umbrella drink or ten, and enjoy this week's choice posts from across the Gothamist network. Torontoist (where it's 75 degrees F as of this writing)......

All the highlights from our sister sites around the globe. 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......

Around the world as experienced by the -ist network: Sampaist is on the scene in São Paulo beginning this week to become the only ist south of the Equator. Editor Leandro M. Pinto leads the paulistanos down there. You can protest someone at his office, sure, but when the whistle blows at the end of the day can you follow him home? D.C. has sports fans, apparently, and elephants aren't really cut out for zoos.......

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......