On the cover of this week’s Washington City Paper, Tom Anderson takes a close look at Politics & Prose, the D.C. bookstore and cultural institution that’s currently up for sale. Worth pondering: How much is the massive amount of goodwill the store has generated over the years actually worth?

Mike Riggs leads off the arts section with his ballad for D.C.’s sideshow performers, who will lose their reliable home when H Street NE’s Palace of Wonders becomes the larger Red Palace. In film, Tricia Olszewski reviews The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest and Howl. In theater, Chris Klimek reviews A Fox on the Fairway and The Lost Ones. For One Track Mind, I talk to D.C. producer and singer Alvin Risk about his Erasure-style, perspective-swapping lament about infidelity.

In City Lights: Louis Jacobson reviews “The Cult” at Gallery@Social. Plus: The Corin Tucker Band, Mummenschanz, The Night of the Hunter, Liz Lerman and science, Fang Island, and Luisa Maita.

And don’t forget. There’s some kind of rally this weekend. We wrote a guide.