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On the cover this week, I take a dark, torturous journey into the heart of the pub-quiz industry and emerged somewhat scathed. Benjamin R. Freed leads the arts section with a smart dissection of what recent cuts to a federal grant program mean for D.C. arts organizations—-especially smaller ones. Ben Westhoff reviews the new, more downcast record from D.C.’s Title Tracks, while David Dunlap listens to the latest from seminal jangle-poppers The Feelies. Tricia Olszewski sits through a documentary about ventriloquism. In theater, Chris Klimek isn’t thrilled by Studio’s show-with-in-a-show drama The New Electric Ballroom, but has kinder words for the opening installment of Capital Fringe’s Wattage mini-festival. Bob Mondello thinks that African Continuum Theatre’s Blues for an Alabama Sky tries to power itself on its characters dreams and doesn’t quite succeed, while Trey Graham says that Factory 449’s Magnificent Waste could be a bit more economical in its asking of Big Questions.