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......

Photo by Mike Tigas on flickrFormer Longhorn standout Roger Clemens was among the players named Thursday in an investigative report into steroid use in professional baseball. The report, which put the blame on both players and management for the drug problem throughout the game, was released by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell after 20 months of study. Clemens played at the University of Texas in the 1982 and 1983 seasons and has been one of......

Photo courtesy austinsantaspeedorun.com Santa Speedo Run at Trail of Lights 5kSaturday, December 8Zilker Park6pm[info]During next weekend's Trail of Lights 5k Run, Zilker Park's festive arrangement of lighted scenes won't be the only eye candy on display. Some steely individuals will get together to participate in Austin's first annual Santa Speedo Run, wearing, as you might have guessed, nothing but the trademark Lycra swim briefs. It's all in the name of good fun, while (informally) fundraising......

After being threatened with a lawsuit by "Handsome Dick" Manitoba in 2004, Toronto native, London resident, and Ph.D. mathematician Daniel Snaith was forced to change his recording alias. What was once called Manitoba (not Handsome Dick) is now Caribou, and tonight, this electronic psychadelic dreamy pop outfit (a full band plays live) will be at Club Deville. Snaith's latest album Andorra is maybe his best yet. Streams of orchestral pop closely rivaling that of......

Division Day Beartrap Island (Eenie Meanie) Formed in Santa Cruz in 2001, Division Day honed their craft in a small sound-proofed bedroom. They put together an EP, The Mean Way In, in 2005, and have earned a bit of blogosphere recognition since then thanks to their catchy indie pop hooks and knack for a good cover song. Beartrap Island, their first full-length, is full of toe-tapping, old fashioned sing-a-long start and stop rock'n'roll that......

Do Make Say Think blend blistering rock guitars with numerous other soundscape generating instruments to create sophisticated and epic compositions of the finest caliber. The Toronto outfit captivated us with a rousing performance (when they opened for Broken Social Scene) last year at Stubb’s. The band’s use of an assortment of unconventionally obtained audio along with their application of jazz standards makes for a truly unique post-rock sound. Largely instrumental, Do Make Say Think have......

Once in a while, we like to take some time to introduce you to bands -- both local otherwise -- that we think you'd enjoy. Le Diamont Brut aims to showcase those MySpace gems we hope to see shine. Recommend your local suggestions by emailing music@austinist.com. FINAL FANTASY What’s the Deal: Final Fantasy is Owen Pallett, and yes, he is a fan of the game series. That’s actually where he got his name. His music......

Hot Freaks! is a loose affiliation--a cabal, if you will--of international music and culture bloggers, including Dallas' Gorilla Vs. Bear, New York's brooklynvegan, and Toronto's Chromewaves, who have banded together Voltron-style to wreak cross-promotional havoc on the Western blogosphere. Masterminded by Austin promoter John Mascarenhas, Hot Freaks! has put together a lovely set of after-parties for those of us who won't be snarled in post-ACL parking-lot quagmires until midnight. Both events are looking really tempting,......

What a difference a year makes—certainly in the case of this fledgling music festival. Last December's inaugural Fun Fun Fun Fest featured over two dozen bands and DJs, and showcased a good variety of indie rock, punk, and electronic music. This year, they've grown even bigger, better, and bolder: the second annual installment will span two days and has been pushed ahead by a month, to November 3rd and 4th. Staying true to their......

Tonight at Emo's, mc chris, the Yuppie Pricks and nerdcore rapper Terp2it (aka tireless local performer Chris Trew) will take the stage to rock your tighty whities. We recently snagged a copy of Terp2it's new album, The Freshest Dude, and sat down for a quick chat with him about his new release. How would you describe nerdcore to the uninitiated? I think it started as "rapping about something that's popular with nerds" like Star Wars.......

First things first, people: enough of this “stop shilling Emo’s all the time” nonsense! You can shout “scene/lifestyle” all you want, but the fact remains that there just aren’t many clubs downtown that attract big-time touring bands and assemble kickass local bills for under $20. Case in point: tonight’s performance by Toronto avant-punks F*cked Up. The notoriously obscurist five-piece, who write 8-minute progressive hardcore anthems about things like anarchist computer hackers and the Chinese......

The Statesman picked up a Chicago Tribune story indicating that 18 out of 20 studies on the topic show significant links between the built environment and obesity. One, by Reid Ewing from the University of Maryland, showed that people living in suburban developments whose only link to other places is busy roads with few sidewalks were 6 pounds heavier on average than those living in "walkable" communities. Another, by Matthew Turner at the University of......

We heard a lot of buzz around Robinson Devor's dramatic bestiality documentary Zoo at South by Southwest this year, but we just couldn't fit any of the screenings into our already-packed SXSW schedule. So when Zoo showed up on the schedule at Toronto's HotDocs festival last month, we jumped at the chance to see it. Here's the thing about Zoo: it's about dudes having sex with horses. Or rather, horses having sex with dudes, if......

They're all over the place these days. The deck at Spiderhouse: on the cover Austin Music Magazine. Eating a taco at El Chilito, on the cover of The Chronicle. Pick up a copy of XL at Jo's on 2nd: there are their sweet faces yet again. The handsome Austin quintet Voxtrot, it seems, are kind of a big deal. We already knew they've been loved up by bloggers the world over, but magazine covers?......

Peter & The Wolf is/are preparing for a spring tour which will feature not only the soothing sounds of the Austin-based singer/songwriter Red Hunter, but a tour-only CD. Though this 6 week jaunt around the country will feature the same reliable Toyota as previous trips, one notable difference is the permanence of Hunter's accompanying band, which will remain solid throughout the tour. Some lucky locals around hosting towns will be featured as choir members......

We should probably preface this whole thing by saying that we absolutely love Don McKellar. And not in a cute, innocent, forgivable way—in a nerdy, fawning, obsessive kind of way. And so while much of the following interview does relate directly to Reg Harkema’s new film Monkey Warfare (which Don is in, and which will be screening at SXSW), we also couldn’t resist occasionally veering way off topic, randomly blurting out years worth of pent-up......

Austin's Explosions In The Sky play powerful instrumental indie-rock that has been compared to Mogwai and Sigur Ros and are widely lauded by critics. Their live shows have become so popular that their Emo's show in March has been sold out for weeks, and multiple-night runs are now needed in cities like New York and Toronto. After a three-plus year wait, EITS's new album All Of A Sudden, I Miss Everyone arrives on Tuesday.......

Chuck Norris and his World Combat League had better work on those fists of legend, because there's a new breed of no-holds-barred brawlers coming to Austin this March. We're talking, of course, about the all-female Pillow Fight League. These fearsome ladies are Toronto's version of the Lonestar Rollergirls, and they boast similarly frightful nicknames, like Betty Clocker, Eiffel Power, and, our favorite, Champain. As in that delicious sparkling wine, but with bubbles... that kill.......

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......

It was the winter of 1997. Toronto. Some big and atrocious-looking gallery on the edge of pig-windowed Chinatown. That’s where we first got to see the brilliance of Keith Haring up close. Well, “up close” isn’t all that necessary when the piece is thirty goddamn feet tall, but it was really there. In all it’s simplistic glory. Thoughtful. Angry. People with dog-heads and politics. You could almost touch it with your tongue it was......

Considered the “great film” of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, an early indicator of its Oscar potential, Babel is a film which shares notable characteristics with recent successful indies capable of garnering the full attention of Hollywood. Looking like Syriana in its scope, feeling like an international version of Crash, Babel is the interweaving of stories about people in crisis – their crises arising from misunderstandings and failed communication – culminating in a......

On Tuesday, the American -ists will be celebrating democracy and hitting the polls, letting politicians know what they really think. It just made us wonder: if it were up to the -ist-a-verse, what would we be voting for? Londonist votes for better skincare, alternative spaces for art, cute little birds and the men who keep them, and concrete. Lots of concrete. Shanghaiist votes for one of the Bee Gees and Air Supply (it's a double-ticket),......

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......

Runners' High Documentary Feature Competition Screening Info: 2:30pm October 21st at Hideout Regional Premiere. The Toronto Star says, "It's pure inspiration every step of the way." The SF Bay Guardian raves, "Inspirational Sports Movies are hard to beat and this one is particularly potent." When teenagers from one of the nation’s toughest neighborhoods in Oakland, California sign up to train for a marathon, they begin the journey of a lifetime. Runners High is an......

Jean-Marc Vallée's award-winning C.R.A.Z.Y., recipient of accolades at film festivals around the world (Gijón, Toronto, Vancouver, Boulder), recently garnered yet another laurel: the low-budget indie comedy-drama was given the "Soundpost.com Feature Film Director Award" at the 19th Annual Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival (aGLIFF), which continues through Sunday. It's fitting that Vallée, who uses both sound and music to extraordinary emotional effect, will be receiving a $130,000 grant from Soundpost.com. The prize money......

As fall settles in and another calendar page gets turned, thoughts turn from bbq's and vacations to holidays and the realization that '06 is coming to an end. With all that going on, with change in the air, we wonder what is it that made that makes the -ists ponder? Phillyist is concerned that the war on Trans fats could affect it's beloved cheese steak sandwiches, something for which we should all be concerned.......

"The cameraman was on night duty as we headed to Baltimore. Night duty means you watch the sea for buoys while everyone else sleeps. At 4am he totally spaced out and we crashed into a buoy. I wish to god we got that on tape, because it was super chaotic. We thought we were goin' down, the boat spun around, and then everything was very quiet. After that moment, I think we all descended into sea madness over the next couple of days."...

After attempting to take the Toronto Film Festival by storm, although his screening was halted due to technical difficulties, the world’s favorite Kazak journalist is ready to bring his movie to U.S.&A. In conjunction with a bit of clever marketing using MySpace, the Alamo Drafthouse South will feature an advance screening of everyone’s favorite donkey-riding, whore-for-a-sister having, mustachioed journalist, Borat’s new film, entitled Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of......