With her surprisingly dish-less memoir, Going Rogue: An American Life, now on bookstore shelves and plastered across cable news ad infinitum, Sarah Palin is taking her “anti”-media machine on the road – but judging from the map she’s using for her book tour, the whole U.S. is one big red state. Guess that explains why the closest she’ll get the nation’s capital is Fairfax, VA (and why the moose is blue).

Seeing most political author events take place at leftist tract peddlers like Politics & Prose or Busboys & Poets, Palin is taking her message directly to the people at…a BJ’s Wholesale Club (this one to be exact). So, on Saturday, December 5th from 11 am to 2 pm, come on down to get your own personal copy of Going Rogue autographed by the former Alaskan governor, then pick up a gallon of mayo, a pallet of tube socks, and some free jalapeno poppers at the sample station.

Per the GOP darling’s official Twitter page, things are going great so far. “Perfect tour kickoff w/Kid Rock tune praising Northern MI humming in backgrnd…Above expectations,” she tweeted. (We’d love to tell you more, but she now deletes all of her posts after 24 hours, lest someone have the nerve to fact check.)

Along with Fairfax, she’ll also be hitting such hotbeds of American political discourse as Roswell, NM, Reno, NV, Sandpoint, ID and Fayetville, AR. To find her appearance in your neck of the woods, visit her Facebook page…or don’t.

To check out more goings-on in the DC area, keep up with the CultureMob blog or follow us on Twitter.

Some have called Jamaica’s mightiest record producer, the one and only Lee “Scratch” Perry, a madman. He may be one reggae’s longest-lived patron saints, but he also managed to drive Bob Marley out of his stable of recording artists, clash with The Clash over the production values of “Police and Thieves” and, not least, burn his own recording studio down to rid it of “unclean spirits.” (They don’t call him “The Upsetter” for nothing.) This winter, a precious few US audiences will have the chance to witness Perry walk the border between madness and genius live on stage.

Ever the eccentric, Perry’s live show as every bit as surreal as the dozens of singles and albums released under his multitude of pseudonyms since the early 1960s. Expect sound system antics de rigueur, the most unintelligible stage banter this side of Shane MacGowan and, of course, and that drop…drop…drop dub beat.

Dude lives all the way over in Switzerland these days, so pocket tickets while they’re still $25 a pop. Check out Perry’s handful of U.S. dates below:

Sunday, December 13th: New York, NY @ HighLine Ballroom

Monday, December 14th: Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club

Wednesday, December 16th: Park City, Utah @ Star Bar

Friday, December 18th: San Francisco, CA @ The Independent

Saturday, December 19th: Oakland, CA @ Town Hall

Sunday, December 20th: Santa Cruz, CA @ The Catalyst

To check out more groundbreaking goings-on in arts and culture, keep up with the CultureMob blog or follow us on Twitter.

Simone Kahn, wife of Andre Breton, poses for Man Ray with a Vanautu sculpture in 1927.

Long before native art became a part of the cultural mainstream, Man Ray — born Emmanuel Radnitsky in 1890 — began to incorporate tribal cravings imported from colonial West Africa into his ethereal portraiture.

Through January 10th, “Man Ray, African Art and the Modernist Lens” will be exhibiting more than one hundred photos from this period of the prolific photographer’s career, alongside the original “masks, carved figures, utilitarian objects” that the artist acquired in flea markets and curio shops during his two decade stay in Paris.

Additionally, the gallery will also be hosting two of their monthly“Phillips After 5″ lecture tours of the exhibition during December and January, in addition to a third evening presentation on the 17th. Each will examine a different aspect of Man Ray’s pioneering work behind the camera. They are as follows:

December 3rd: Très Chic: Man Ray and Fashion
Man Ray’s fashion photographs of Kiki de Montparnasse, Nancy Cunard, and Madame de Saint Exupéry in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar helped bring African objects into the popular conscious.

December 17th: What A Little Unknown Can Do: Non-Western Art and the Avant Garde
Dada and surrealist artists including Hanna Hoch, Man Ray, and Roger Parry were fascinated by formal, conceptual, and spiritual properties of objects from African and Oceanic cultures.

January 7th: Lights! Camera! Action! The Drama of Man Ray’s Photographs
Man Ray’s choices of lighting, pose, and composition filled his photographs of African and Oceanic art objects with drama.

For more information, visit the Phillips’ Man Ray site here and, to check out more goings-on in the DC area, keep up with the CultureMob blog or follow us on Twitter.

Just three days after his raunchy riffs on the Obamas‘ sex life caused mass walkouts at his Carnegie Hall show, former SNL cast member and current 30 Rock star, Tracy Morgan, has canceled his planned New Year’s Eve stand-up performance at Washington’s Warner Theatre — a venue a mere three blocks from the White House.

The comedian had been previously been on the hook for the stand-alone DC date that would, presumably, fall along much the same lines as the New York production and culminate with the star officiating the 2010 ball drop. Whether the cancellation stems from the media reaction to this week’s performance (The Daily News quoted Morgan as saying “Obama is really changing the White House, because he and Michelle will have the first presidential sex tape out,” which he followed up by “­mimicking explicit sex acts on stage”) or low-ticket sales stemming from the oddity of sitcom star top-lining a New Year’s event remains to be seen. The star has also similarly backed out of a book signing for his newly released memoir, I Am the New Black.

Then again, it could always be another relapse. Ah, Hollywood.

At present, Morgan’s publicist is keeping mum, only stating that the show will be rescheduled. The Warner Theatre, however, doesn’t appear to be keeping its fingers crossed. Rob Muller, Director of Marketing for LiveNation — the promoters for the one-off DC performance — made no mention of honoring tickets at later date in his announcement of the cancellation and instead only addressed where and how to obtain a refund. For more information on that matter, visit the Warner’s scheduling page here.

For the rest of the beat of that’s fit to tweet, check out the CultureMob blog or follow us on Twitter.

Though their most recent tour this past October passed over DC in lieu of Charm City, fans of Thievery Corporation needn’t head into the new year without a live dose their trademark down tempo, genre-tripping electronica. On Saturday, December 12th, the DJ duo will get behind the decks at co-founder Eric Hilton’s 18th Street Lounge for an exclusive set that promises to dive deeply into their respective collections of esoteric aural oddities.

As of yet, news of the December DJ set — no classical Indian chants or guitar solos here, folks — hasn’t been formally posted by the band, their record label or the Lounge, but take it from us — tickets are now on sale and are $15 in advance or $20 at the door. Contact info@eighteenthstreetlounge.com to find out where to pocket a pair for entry to this Christmas present come early, but bear in mind that this event is strictly 21 and up. Doors open at 9:30.

In the meantime head over to over Current TV for a sneak preview of the band’s upcoming appearance, where they’ll be playing tour guides to the DC underground.

For the rest of the beat that’s fit to tweet, check out the CultureMob blog or follow us on Twitter.

Thirty odd years ago and long before anyone had heard of New Wave — let alone punk rock — art student Jerry Casale and two of his Kent State classmates founded a band and a philosophy: De-evolution, better known to the world as Devo.

This week, the (dare we say) pioneers will hold down a two-night stint at the 9:30 Club as they re-present their two best-selling albums, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo and Freedom of Choice, in their entirety. Casale – who, in addition to playing bass and synthesizer, also designed the group’s look and directed the majority of their videos — took some time to explain to CultureMob why the future is dumber than he ever imagined it could be and how the next Devo album might just be shaped like red hat.

Casale at All Tomorrow's Parties 2009

CM: Are you finding the one night/one album format of this tour liberating or constraining? I’d imagine that you’d tempted to go back and tinker with some of the tracks as they originally presented.

JC: It’s serious confrontation with you, yourself, but it’s…constructive and revealing. You listen to some of the songs and go, “Why did I write that?” and “Why did I play it like that?” It’s hard to put yourself back in that reality and frame of mind, but the music makes you do that. It’s almost like a therapy session. We’ll never do this again, but the fact that we’re doing it is a great prelude to the new material, new tour, and new sound and look.

CM: So the reports of that long-gestating new Devo record finally coming out in 2010 are to be believed then?

JC: Oh yeah, this is just to get the word out that Devo is active and coming out with a new canon of songs.

CM: You guys have always been about as far from technologically deficient as band can be. How has technology changed your stage set-up and what impact has it had on the tunes?

JC: We were practicing being robots before there were sequencer lines and ProTools, so people used to think that the video was being manipulated before they’d see us play. It’s too ridiculously quick, rigid and precise. Now it’s so much easier to do with all this new technology. Anybody can be Devo.

Devo at All Tomorrow's Parties 2009

CM: During the month of November, the band will be joined by Steely Dan and the Pixies as one of the acts revisiting their most highly regarded albums. Is this nostalgia, is it a re-introduction for a new generation of fans, or is it something different?

JC: I don’t know. It’s interesting that the idea has taken hold. It’s kind of like an art show when someone has a retrospective to remind a new generation of what happened. I suppose we’re a bit of a curiosity…Today you can buy the old songs on iTunes and watch the old videos on YouTube, but to actually come and see the guys doing it for real is like evidence or proof. [People say] “How do they do that?” and it becomes all the more bizarre. “They made that stuff 30 years ago?”

CM: You’ve had quite the successful career outside of the band, but seeing as Principle Five of the Devolutionary Oath is “We must repeat,” have you always considered yourself first and foremost a member of Devo and not a director?

JC: [With Devo], I’m able to use every part of my aesthetic wit – visual, written, musical, design-wise, stageshow-wise, video-wise. It’s where I put all my energy…When you’re directing a video for someone else, you’re a secondary person. You’re a problem solver, the same as when I directed commercials. They say ”How will you make this work?” You say I’ll do this and this and this and they say, “OK, you’re hired.” It’s apples and oranges.

CM: Given the forward thinking nature of the band, I’d be curious to know your thoughts on playing Washington for the first time in what is supposedly the era of “change.” Is the future as bleak as you thought it would be thirty years ago when you guys first came together at Kent State?

Jerry Casale (1977)

CM: You can thank the Internet. But at least we don’t have record companies anymore.

JC: As they say, “The reports of death were highly exaggerated.” I think this whole conventional wisdom that got going about no more record companies was a little premature. They’re just warping into something else. As a matter of fact, all these people need each other or else there is no commerce anyway. Record companies will certainly not be as important without their distribution channels…but will basically return to being more like an ad agency. They’ll do what they used to do –- developing acts and getting them out there.

CM: With that in mind, when Devo does indeed put out a new record, will it be a tangible product or is it digital from here on out?

JC: No, it’s going to be [available] in every possible medium, beyond even just vinyl novelties, the old CD and downloadable MP3s. We’re looking to do things that are much more strange, like selling some object that is basically a playback device. You’ll be able to get your music through a replica red hat that you can get at Target or embedded in a funky toy…so that you’re not really paying for the music. You’re paying for a piece of art that’s got a Devo song in it.

[We want to] surround the music with some sort of cultural context, so that you have an association and can create a story. That’s what we tried to do. We created an alternative world with its own characters and funny, cult-like pseudo-philosophy. It was all a parallel reality that was satirical, but people were in on it. In other words, they’d smile. We weren’t out to attack them or be mean. We just want to make them think.

For more curious goings-on in the metro area, check out the CultureMob blog or follow us on Twitter.

On Thursday, December 17th, Baltimore’s resident auteur and enfant terrible, John Waters, will be headed to the metro area to present his one-man show extolling his obsession with all things Christmas. But beware: this ain’t exactly the Andy Williams Holiday Spectacular and barf bags are most definitely not included.

Here’s how Alexandria’s Birchmere, the typically classy dinner theater hosting the event, sums up DC’s only yuletide celebration that promises to bring the raunch wholesale:

Like a wayward Santa for the Christmas obsessed, legendary filmmaker and raconteur John Waters (Pink Flamingos, Hairspray, A Dirty Shame) rides into town on his sleigh full of smut this December spreading yuletide cheer with his critically acclaimed one-man show, “A John Waters Christmas.” Putting the X in Xmas, Waters’ rapid-fire monologue explores and explodes traditional archetypes as he shares his compulsive desire to give and receive perverted gifts, a religious fanaticism for Santa Claus, and an unhealthy love of true crime holiday horror stories. Delving into his passion for lunatic exploitation Christmas movies and the unhealthy urge to remake all his own films into seasonal children’s classics, The Pope of Trash will give you a Joyeux Noel like no other.

Tickets for “A John Waters Christmas” are now on sale. For more information, visit www.birchmere.com or Waters’ homepage, www.dreamlandnews.com, and check out more perverse holiday gatherings on the CultureMob blog or follow us on Twitter.

Tre swanky “metropolitan Mexican” (you heard it here first) eatery Rosa Mexicano will be shaking off post-Halloween withdrawal pains with an extended, month-long celebration of Central America’s macabre Day of the Dead festival through November 22nd.

In keeping with the holiday’s tradition of offering to fresh eats to the returned souls of the loved ones passed, the chain of upscale Mexican eateries — which now boasts locations in Washington, DC, Atlanta, Miami, and Los Angeles, in addition to its three flagship New York City restaurants — has prepped a special El Día de los Muertos menu in tribute to one of their late founders, Josefina Howard.

Unlike your typical Day of the Dead family fiesta, however, all that grub doesn’t have to go uneaten by mortal mouths. Among the pleasures of the flesh (or is that palate?) available to Mexicano patrones is a smoked chicken, roasted pumpkin and goat cheese tamale; a slow cooked cassoulet stew of duck, chorizo, red beans and pomegranate; and, naturally, a pumpkin-based cocktail with Kahula and spiced rum.

Gaze deep into their lunch and dinner menus here and here, respectively.

To locate the Rosa Mexicano in your neck of the netherworld, check out their homepage and, for the rest of the beat that’s fit to tweet, visit the CultureMob blog or follow us on Twitter.

Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett’s turn as Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams‘ A Streetcar Named Desire has not only been drawing rave reviews, but also achieved an all too rare Kennedy Center milestone: a complete and total sell-out of all 24 performances.

The Liv Ullman-directed production made its US debut at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater on October 29th and runs through November 24th — but for anyone hoping to see Blanchett’s “smoldering performance” (in the words of The Washington Post’s positively glowing review) can now look forward to ticket prices in excess of $100 through third party ticket resellers, such as StubHub.com.

The allure of the Hollywood A-lister has proven so strong that tickets for her November 3rd pre-show Q&A session, In Conversation: Cate Blanchett, (face value: $15) cannot be found anywhere, high or low. Though the odd Kennedy Center event — such as the annual Honors ceremony — are always a hot ticket item, this seems to be first instance of lengthy engagement posting a complete sell out of the 1200-seat Eisenhower. (A shame too, as we won’t be be seeing Blanchett on screen again until 2010, when she takes up the role of Maid Marian opposite Russell Crowe in director Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood.)

Still there will be at least on more chance to chance Blanchett and company on the road. After wrapping later this month, the production of the stage classic will then move to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for a run from November 27 to December 20.

For more on sadly sold out metro area events, check out the Culturemob blog or follow us on Twitter.

How will Washington’s rich and right-wing be closing out the summer of 2010? Why with a seven day cruise through the waters that they one day hope to drill, of course. For the low, low price of six thousand bucks, you too can to join the minds behind the “general, yet Jewish” journal of hard right, neoconservative punditry, Commentary, for a journey into a cold, rogue body: the Bering Sea. (But feel free to insert your own cheap Palin crack here.)

As the preeminent suppliers of the Bush administration’s political raison d’etre trek from Anchorage to Vancouver, Commentary promises that attendees will “enjoy stimulating discussions, speeches, and dinners with some of the most interesting and well-informed people you are ever likely to meet in the most dramatic and gorgeous setting in the Northern Hemisphere.”

Well-informed, indeed. Heading up the Commentary Cruise’s elite roster of culture warriors is none other the magazine’s editor-in-chief and former Reagan speechwriter, John Podhoretz, who is probably most widely known for his 2004 bestseller Bush Country in which christened George W. Bush “the first great leader of the 21st century.”

The Commentary Cruise: An Alaskan cruise with a founding father of father of neoconservatism and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, Norman Podhoretz. (Photo: Susan Walsh/AP)

Also on the docket: attorney Elliott Abrams, a would-be Iran Contra ex-con, if not for the presidential pardon he received from Bush I; self-described “extremely right-wing” British historian, Andrew Roberts; and intelligent design proponent, American slavery apologist and former film critic, Michael Medved, who bit the proverbial hand that fed him with 1992’s Hollywood vs. America: Popular Culture and the War on Traditional Values.

Even with a line-up like that, you can bet your bottom dollar that all aboard the Commentary Cruise’s maiden voyage will be anxiously awaiting their chance to bask in the glow of one man alone: Norman Podhoretz, the 79-year-old father of John and one of the chief architects of neoconservative theory. Though in semi-retirement, Podhoretz will be appearing to talk up his latest opus, Why Are Jews Liberals?, and, one would hope, make his case once again for the bombing of Iran. (For neocons, watching the man himself riff on this topic is tantamount to private performance from the original line-up of Led Zeppelin. Oy.)

To find out all there is to know about the Commentary Cruise (yes, they have yoga classes), check out their website here and for more nitty-gritty on life in the nation’s capital, peruse the CultureMob blog or follow us on Twitter.