Wonkette

Friday
Halloween @ a theater near you! “As one swift look at our calendar indicates, this weekend you may as well just sleep in costume since there are so many (pre) Halloween parties around it is almost, well, scary. Alternatively though (and this option is starting to seem more and more appealing to me) you can go the route of being scared in the dark, as you did when you were seven.” [BrightestYoungThings] MORE »

Friday
* True School House Party @ Liv, “Catering more to Carter administration kids than second term Reagan babies, Grammy-winning producer and former Little Brother member 9th Wonder will be deejaying some of the finest R&B and hip-hop from the 1980s through late 1990s. He might even drop a beat from his newest album. If that isn’t enough, Monie Love will serve as the night’s emcee. Oh yeah, Erykah Badu is hosting.” $25, 10 p.m. [DCist] MORE »

• Animal Collective @ 9:30 Club, “One of the most consistently great indie rock experimental bands on the block. Semi-local Animal Collective steps up to the 9:30 Club in support for their excellent new album Strawberry Jam.” 10PM, $20. [Brightest Young Things]

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* DC Shorts Film Festival at the Landmark E Street Theatre, for the indie film enthusiast in all of us. $12 per screening, from 4PM to 9PM. [DC Shorts]
* Macy Gray @ Constitution Hall, “On her recent album, ‘Big’, Gray still boasts a gruff, grainy voice uncommon in the world of R&B, and her uniqueness has managed to rise even as her stock has fallen.” $30-$60 at 8PM. [Washington Post]

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Here’s a great idea for the weekend: Drive down to Norfolk and watch a bunch of crappy student films made by the kids who go to Pat Robertson’s White House Training School! Here are some actual entries, and, we think, little reviews? MORE »

* The Frames at the 9:30 Club with Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s. $15 at 8:30PM. [9:30 Club]
* The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema at the Hirshhorn. “Sophie Fiennes places bombastic psychoanalytic philosopher and film scholar Slavoj Zizek into mocked-up scenes from cinema classics including films by Hitchcock, Tarkovsky, and Lynch. His reflections range from insightful to controversial and outright goofy, but this digest is fun for any cinephile. Free at 7PM in the Ring Auditorium, also tomorrow night. [Hirshhorn]
* New Yorker editor and fiction funnyman Ben Greenman reads from his latest story collection at Olsson’s in Dupont. Free at 7PM. [Olsson's]

* Chris Hitchens in conversation with Zachary Leader about Kingsley Amis. Olsson’s in Penn Quarter, free at 7PM. [Olsson's]
* John Vanderslice at the R&R Hotel with St. Vincent. $12 at 9PM. [R&R Hotel]
* Novelist Julia Alvarez in conversation with the NYT’s Mirta Ojito. This free event is at the Smithsonian but you need tickets, 7PM. [Smithsonian]

* CQ Senior Editor, Observer columnist and husband to someone-or-other Chris Lehmann plays guitar in a band called The Charm Offensive. They play The Red & The Black tonight at 9:30PM. [The Charm Offensive]
* American Prospect editor Paul Starr “offers a robust view of the promise of liberalism to tackle some of the social and political problems of our nation” in Freedom’s Power. P&P, free at 7PM. [P&P]
* Tonight is the first of five panel discussions about intelligence and terror. Tonight’s panel is called “The Continuing Necessity for Intelligence: The Eternal Verities.” Former Acting CIA director John McLaughlin and fomer director of the CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center Robert Grenier discuss how the world has changed. At Meridian House, 6:30 PM. $200 for five nights. [Smithsonian]

* New Republic Senior Editor Jonathan Cohn discusses his i-love-universal-health care book, Sick at P&P. “Government is not the bogeyman, but ‘an expression of our will and resources as a community.’” Free at 7PM. [P&P]
* Remember Shakespeare’s The History of Cardenio? Oh, you’ve never heard of it? There’s a free staged reading tonight at the Shakespeare Theatre on 7th St, 7:30PM. [Shakespeare Theatre]
* Bryan Scary and The Shedding Tears at the Black Cat with Head Like A Kite. $10 at 9PM. [Black Cat]

Friday MORE »

* Talib Kweli at the University of Maryland with Sugarcult and William Tell. $15-20 at 7PM. [Ticketmaster]
* Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, 2006 . “Douglas Gordon and Philipe Parreno have created a film that is part documentary about a soccer match (Real Madrid vs. Villareal, April 23, 2005), part conceptual art portrait.” Free at 8PM [Hirshhorn]
* Local band Lejeune at DC9 with Life in a Hospital, the Jaguar Club and the Glory and the Majesty. $8 at 9PM. [DC9]

* Check out this jazzy film Independent Media in the Time of War and get free pizza and pasta at University of Maryland. [DC Indymedia]
* Vandaveer with the Oranges Band at the Rock and Roll Hotel. $10 at 8:30PM. [R&R Hotel]
* $1 fake burgers and DJ Dave Nada at Vegetate, which finally has a liquor license. 7-9PM. [Brightest Young Things]

* Blue Cheer at the Black Cat with An Albatross. $13 at 8PM. [Black Cat]
* Double booking at the 9:30 Club. Doors for The Books at 6PM and Ratatat with Despot & Hexa at 10PM. Both shows $15. [9:30 Club]