Personal Plea: To all District residents who ran for office last Tuesday, please take down your campaign signs! Some of you lost big time (Dee Hunter, sorry), some of you inexplicably won (Paul Strauss), and some of you didn’t have to bother with signs at all (Kwame Brown). All of you need to remove your signs from city lamp posts, street corners, traffic islands, major intersections, and random tree boxes!

Intangible Arts has a rundown of some crazy-ass show you missed. Let’s focus on the first band:

“BLUE SAUSAGE INFANT: A deliberately short set this time (the audio file clocked in at exactly 13:13, how spooky). A brief sonic buildup followed by a large, stomping, improvised, freeform freakout of distorted electronics and tremolo-chopped wordless howling vocals. It was a childish tantrum of noise, soaked in psychedelic paranoia. It came back down to earth (more or less) with the pulsing Korg and looping chants. So far, the best description of modern-day BSI is “mean-spirited euphoria”… sounds about right.”

Meanwhile at Black Plastic Bag, Intern Bobby has some great photos of this past weekend’s Dan Deacon show.

The Heights Life is reporting that The Heights restaurant has changed its menu and slashed its prices.

Mount Pleasant still can’t sustain a decent blog! Climbing The Mount hasn’t posted since early August. Will its last post really be about selling your art at Tonic? Thanks to this blog for pointing it out.

Congress Heights On The Rise has a rundown of community events for the week.

Pop Cesspool invents some awesome new sign language.

Prince of Petworth responds to a reader question: Why didn’t you write more about the recent series of shootings? PoP mentions City Paper’s excellent coverage–thanks PoP–and then goes on to state something we’ve long believed. People obsess over crime too much!

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All my friends keep asking me, “Arthur, why do you say you’ll never eat another chicken sandwich from Subway?”

I frequent all the cheap sandwich shops near my downtown corporate office. Yesterday I wanted an empanada and beans & rice from Julia’s, but they weren’t selling beans that day. So, since lunch was a bust from the start, I decided to cut my losses and go for a cheap $5 footlong sandwich from Subway.

I now question whether this is ever a good choice.
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If you discount decor and valet attendants, (and I’m not sure why you would but go with me here) menus are a diner’s first chance to seriously analyze a restaurant and its offerings. Menus perform many more functions than a mere listing of appetizers, entrees, and desserts. They create good will, they quietly announce a restaurant’s target audience, they can even provide insights on the owner’s philosophies and/or pet peeves.  Some menus, however, just go overboard.

In our new Food Issue, Loose Lips (otherwise known as Mike DeBonis who’s been known to make pronouncements on food when not hounding council members), picks apart five different menus to highlight their meaningless regionalism, overzealous sourcing, or just plain stupidity. It’s an amusing read. So why aren’t you reading it yet?

As much local politics as humanly possible. Send your tips, releases, stories, events, etc. to lips@washingtoncitypaper.com.

Good morning, all. And HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAYS to Phil Mendelson and Vincent Gray, both of whom marked another year on Saturday. The chairman celebrated his 66th Friday evening at F. Scott’s in Georgetown. Put party reports in the comments!

“What D.C. should expect from Obama administration?” asks Michael Neibauer in the Examiner. Voting rights? Budget autonomy? Federal payment? All of the above?

David Nakamura writes up the latest voting-rights feud in the WaPo. With a solid Democratic congressional majority and a Democratic president, should we be aiming for a House vote (likely) or full statehood (not so likely)? Don’t look to Hizzoner for answers: “Fenty declined to take a position on what route the city should pursue, saying he wants to work with the Obama administration, congressional leaders and other city officials to develop a game plan that has the best chance for success.”

Hart Middle School, in Congress Heights, is overrun with violence, reports Bill Turque in the WaPo. “D.C. Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee has dispatched a team of administrators and extra security to an Anacostia middle school where three teachers have been assaulted, a 14-year-old was charged with carrying a shotgun and students have run the hallways discharging fire extinguishers.”

HERE’S THE MONEY SENTENCE: “While Woodard was speaking, he and a Washington Post reporter observed a security guard stand by and watch as a boy with a bandage on his left ear was pummeled on the head by a larger girl swinging her book bag.”

Council looks to go $50 million deeper with cuts than Mayor Fenty’s proposal, reports WaPo. And “the Examiner has learned” that it was all Vince Gray’s idea! The protesters are out at the Wilson Building.

MALIA AND SASHA WATCH—From Gotham Schools; RedState.com; from Jay Mathews in the WaPo; and a fab piece from Gabriel Sherman in the Atlantic

Fred Hiatt in the WaPo: Rhee “may not be able to succeed without at least the tacit support of Barack Obama.”

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Photographs by Darrow Montgomery; slideshow by Ted Scheinman

As much local politics as humanly possible. Send your tips, releases, stories, events, etc. to lips@washingtoncitypaper.com.

Good morning, all. Yesterday was local politician day at the H. Carl Moultrie I Courthouse.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—Report: Brazil Punched Guy “in the Back [of] the Head With a Closed Fist”; Brazil Pleads Not Guilty; Strauss Pleads Not Guilty!

Your new head of Employment Services is Joseph P. Walsh, former director of policy and planning for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty plucks one off of Mass Gov. Deval Patrick’s bench. David Nakamaura reports in the WaPo. Also Jonathan O’Connell in the Biz Journal.

HMMM—So what’s next for Tene Dolphin? Fenty’s confidante and first chief of staff left the third-floor bullpen to get DOES back in line after Summer Spencer’s firing. Now, says Fenty spokesperson Mafara Hobson, Dolphin will be sticking around for a bit to help Walsh with the transition. But after that? Hobson could not confirm that Dolphin would be remaining with the administration. Nakamura has more at D.C. Wire., inclufing this: “One administration official speculated the Dolphin, who has worked with the Democratic National Committee, might be angling for a job in an Obama administration.”

MALIA AND SASHA WATCH CONT.—Examiner: “Presidential children have eschewed D.C. Public Schools since Amy Carter’s four-year stint in the late 1970s, but recent reforms to the district could lure back the nation’s new first family….However, the odds aren’t great.” Also DCist; bloggers Joanne Jacobs, Ed in the Apple, Dee Does the District

Harry Jaffe has a D.C. wish list for Barack Obama.

ALSO FROM JAFFE—In Washingtonian: Fenty’s midterm report card; “Born to Run,” a lengthy profile of Hizzoner

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You just knew that those food-porn pics in cookbooks and newspapers were too good to be true. Maybe you assumed that the gorgeous plates were merely the product of good lighting or a great photographer. Well, turns out there’s another paid professional working to make you feel small about your own in-home cooking skills: a food stylist.

In our new Food Issue, Jule Banville and Darrow Montgomery take you behind the scenes as local stylist Lisa Cherkasky, a former cook and a smart sandwich blogger, prepares a plate of shrimp pasta for its moment in front of the camera. Read it. You’ll realize you need a paintbrush and Scotch Guard to make your own food look so good.

At Prince of Petworth, a reader worries over the aftermath of a stabbing at 11th and Otis:

“Part of what makes me really sad about this is that there are kids that live right near that intersection. Like right abutting the intersection, the coolest kid in Columbia Heights lives there and I hate to think of her being scared because of this happening. When I was a kid living in a pretty good neighborhood, someone broke into my dad’s car in our drive way. Anyway, it really scared me… I can’t imagine what it does to a kid to know that someone was stabbed (and most likely killed) right there.â€�

Pop Cesspool boasts that it has the most essential election-night clip from 14th and U. Sexist has some pretty great video too. And yet… 14th & You has no footage! Where were you? Instead, it has an update on the redevelopment of an old Whitman-Walker building.

Intangible Arts as an update on the record store that will not die.

Finally a local blogger cleans out their blogroll. Bloomingdale (for now) clears out the dead blogs and added a few great ones.

Life in Mount Vernon Square remarks on the changes to ANC 2C. Theresa Sule writes:

“Thank you to everyone who voted to bring about change to ANC2C. We have prevailed now the work must begin. We must work hard to make this a well functioning ANC….

I am glad a change has come to ANC 2C and I am even happier to be a part of it. I will do my best to represent my Single Member District and make sure that the voices of our citizens participate in all issues that affect our neighborhood.

Now let’s hope that President Obama will give full voting rights to Washington, DC as he has voiced on multiple ocassions. It will be interesting to see what impact if any this decision will have on on Washington, DC’S Advisory Neighborhood Commission.”

Southwest…The Little Quadrant That Could reports that a zoning analysis of SW will begin very soon: “The DC Office of Planning will kick off their analysis of zoning in Southwest in January 2009 with a community-wide public meeting. It was originally scheduled to begin in late Summer, but apparently has been delayed.”

Critic John Leonard dies.

Due to a production error, the last two lines of “Obsessive Chef Disorder,” Tim Carman’s piece about persnickety chefs, were omitted from this week’s print edition. The last paragraph of the piece should read:

These infrequent sessions give the staff an opportunity to tell Buben that his obsessions have gone from constructive to destructive. The sessions also give Buben a chance to come clean. “This is when I’ve had to say I really fucked up,� Buben says.

The piece runs in its entirety on our Web site.

Photo of Jeffrey Buben by Darrow Montgomery

As much local politics as humanly possible. Send your tips, releases, stories, events, etc. to lips@washingtoncitypaper.com.

Good morning, all. Your morning entertainment: “Get Down With Brown!” [MP3]

LL WEEKLY—is off this week, for WCP’s FOOD ISSUE. Check out his culinary writing!

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—DCision ‘08: The LL Postmortem; ANC 2C: Free at Last!; Panel Rejects Lottery Contract Appeal

Michael Brown credits dropping Dad’s name with helping him win, reports Nikita Stewart and David Nakamura in the Post. “Brown said he finally thought, ‘We should be just proud of what we are as people . . . where we come from.’” Also—the M. Brown campaign by the numbers: “1 million pieces of literature that pictured him with his father…about 1.5 million automated phone calls…300 workers and volunteers.”

So long, GOP: WaTimes’ Michael Drost writes about a Republicanless D.C. council. Jim Graham: “It will be a long time before a Republican is elected on the council again.”

APROPOS—Richard Layman compares Patrick Mara to Jim Gilmore and Andy Harris; Gary Imhoff in DCWatch’s themail: “Carol’s defeat means that Republicans will face being shut out of the council for decades into the future. Our city is in for a long spell of not just one-party rule, but of unchallenged, completely uniform one-party rule.”

How will Obama relate to D.C.? Politico takes a look. Says Mayor Adrian Fenty: “I do expect them to be extremely active, engaged members of the Washington, D.C., community — as they have been in Chicago….I know he won’t be a president who just happens to live in the White House. He will be a president who will see the issues of the city and want to do something about them.”

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* Read our complete election coverage or re-live the day in photos.

* New York Times recaps Obama’s morning after.

* Slate explains what happens now for the “gay couples who entered into legal marriages in California before the amendment passed.”

- WaPo’s Eugene Robinson tells us why we all lost it on Tuesday.

- In case you missed the Uncle Sam or Uncle Tom question—I love this reaction: “Really. Ralph Nader. What was that.” Also, since when has Nader invoked Uncle Sam?

- But Craigslisters are really clamoring for yesterday’s Post. Incidentally, if anyone has an extra copy, drop me a line.

* And in this newspaper:

- The fussy food issue! Tim Carman on the obsessive chef, Jule Banville on food stylists and a high-class chocolate chip, Ruth Samuelson on fake food allergies, and Mike DeBonis on the region’s fussiest menus.

- Tricia Olszewski on the latest in film.

- I shop at the nation’s newest pro-life pharmacy.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery