The sarcasm dripped from his mouth, splattered on the concrete bus pad, and congealed with decades-old oil stains. My first thought was, fuck this dude. During the two-and-a-half-hour ride, I listened to a college girl complain about how her roommate in Philly stole her birth control (and toothbrush; I'm not sure which is more disturbing).

The Scout reaction %u2014 "The real victims here are the 40,000 kids in Philadelphia who potentially could lose afterschool programs at a time when Philadelphia's murder rate is soaring" %u2014 sounds familiar.

It was like visiting Tomorrowland %u2014 including the long lines %u2014 except this was for real. The lines were long, but the conversation was electric as tens of thousands crowded into 20 solar homes on Washington's National Mall.

Just one thing we will not hear from the supposedly concerned pharmaceutical industry and other promoters of October's Breast Cancer Awareness festivities. | Just another example of a city that can't get the easy stuff right. | I stopped watching the channel he reported for when he was here the first time because he is so obnoxious. | It is Orwellian,Joe McCarthy-like, and we all know it. | The only way I can describe the photo you ran of Port Richmond is this: You reached into our clothes hamper and picked the pair of underwear that we crapped. | I really don't think that facts matter to someone like Schimmel, who sees in America an "ignorant," "warmongering," "xenophobic," "terror-celebrating" monstrosity that is rightly "despised" by the rest of the world.

3. I got drunk and scalded my face on Lorenzo's pizza. So did everyone I know.

I flinched when a 20-pound robot was checked into the wall like a hockey player. Only a Plexiglas cage separated children and me from a machine that could kill.

Guess who loves hanging out in Atlantic City, in broad daylight, introducing himself to TV journalists and their camera crews to yak about the good old days in Hammonton, N.J.?

Thanks to the type of publicity that more than 3 million hits on YouTube can generate, Amber Lee Ettinger remains Barack Obama's most-famous fan not named Oprah.

Dubbed the "Flying Pink Pig Bus Tour" by PACleanSweep, the vehicle is stopping at various rallies to persuade the public to vote "no" to all the retention judges in the upcoming general election.

"Sorry, Philadelphia," says Australia-bound curator Alex Baker. "I was really surprised at how sophisticated Melbourne was %u2014 way more sophisticated than Philadelphia."

omehow I remained in ignorance of Dylan and The Band's The Basement Tapes until last week. | Paul Williams is 5 feet tall, and is a singing/songwriting juggernaut. | All good drag queens know that Cover Girl will never cover boy. | The bar is owned by the people who brought you the Ministry of Information.

The disorienting stream-of-consciousness opening to Mari Akasaka's Vibrator could be either very appropriate, or very, very crass.

The corps that came to Annenberg Center last week offered all-around virtuoso movement complemented by the genuine unbridled enthusiasm of these fine-tuned performers. Hubbard's dancers are so good they're able to make even somewhat routine choreography appealing.

Wade's script challenges and delights by exploring our responses to death indirectly: Lives are momentarily interrupted by grisly discoveries that merit only a brief mention in the news ("I'm 'woman walking dog,'" Kate gushes to her mother, reading from the morning paper), but haunt the discoverers long after.

One of the canonical works of the theatre of the absurd, Rhinoceros concerns a small European town set upon by a herd of, yes, rhinos.

As the Philly vs. Baltimore spat over E.A. Poe's legacy (instigated in these very pages) continues to rage, there's no doubt in Grover Silcox's mind over which city offers the best ambience for those eerie tales.

A few years ago Jacobs embarked on a "humble quest to become the smartest person in the world," so he read the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica and documented his intellectual adventure in The Know-It-All.

Ballet is an art form where the performers constantly seek to convey a sense of being lighter than air. That ideal is taken to higher heights than usual with Dracula, the only production in Pennsylvania Ballet's repertory where dancers actually fly.

Say "fairy tales" and we inevitably think Disney: sweet, simple stories ending in "happily ever after." Theaters try to force Tony Award-winning 1987 musical Into the Woods into that mold, but it simply won't fit.

There are those who keep talking about what we can do to help Philadelphia youth. Then there are those who are actually doing something.

If you ever loved a man in the past 40 years, Aretha Franklin earned your undying affection the first time you heard "Respect." Unless you were a girl in 1985 and you'd already been roller-skating to "Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves," in which the Queen of Soul came out of the kitchen to celebrate the conscious liberation of the female state with Annie Lennox.

Such an avalanche of swooning has surrounded Swede songwriter Jens Lekman since he popped up on American radars in 2004 %u2014 could any artist possibly live up to it all?

You don't have to choose between shaking your fist and shaking your ass.

Hooray for Clancy Newman. This upstate New York native is one of the most acclaimed young cellists out there, and for his Philadelphia Chamber Music Society recital he might have been expected to pull out some chestnuts of the repertoire, a Beethoven sonata maybe, or perhaps the increasingly popular Rachmaninoff sonata.

Trick or Treat Menu at Ansill | MANNA's Pie in the Sky | Beasts and Feasts at London Grill | Faces of Fair Trade Farmer Tour | Reusable Trick-or-Treat Bags for Kids Smiles

1 Le Crêperie Café | 2 Beau Monde | 3 Pari Café Crêperie | 4 Profi's Crêperie | 5 The Crepe & Ribbon

Henri David hasn't opened his legendary jewelry boutique for the day, but he's already on. He's teasing, gossiping, rapping about his 39th annual Halloween Ball before most of us have crawled out of bed.

Air Play trapeze studio has a comforting motto for first-timers like myself: "Run away to the circus and still be home for dinner."

"This is modern-day body snatching. We don't take the whole corpse, we just take parts," says Drexel professor David Flood, who will address shady organ procurement methods in a presentation at the Mütter Museum.

Sam Fleisher died more than 60 years ago, but you still may be able to glom a few sketching tips from the Philadelphia artist.

You don't need strength, endurance or even a decent pair of sneakers to participate in the Philadelphia Marathon.

Not all ghosts are of the haunting variety. Slightly awkward and completely endearing, Ghosticorn is a cross between a unicorn and Casper-type ghoul.

Jen Kirkman's debut comedy album, Self Help, established her as a masterful storyteller whose tales are both honest and hilarious.