Come on Irene: Late last week and over the weekend, Hurricane Irene made landfall in North Carolina and tore up the East Coast, causing structural damage, record flooding and a death toll of over 40.

1 THURS EAT WELL, SLEEP WELL, THEATER WELL: I Got Sick Then I Got Better was first on stage at Martha’s Vineyard with director James Lapine.

East Coast earthquake: Early Tuesday morning, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake occurred in Virginia outside of Charlottesville.

25 THURS SIP AND SPIN: Tired of sitting solo with your single-speaker record cabinet on a Thursday night, that old familiar brew can cradled in your cold hand?

Je suis bankrupt! It’s become a bit of a running gag in the States how weak the dollar has become compared to the Euro. If we go purely on exchange rank, then the dollar loses. But the Euro may actually be the biggest loser in the end.

18 THURS BREATH OF FRESH BELLE ADAIR: I know, it’s a bad pun. I’m sorry. But if it drew your attention to this show, all the better. Belle Adair, straight out of Muscle Shoals, is definitely worth a listen.

Anarchy in the U.K.: Great Britain, historical home of the stiff upper lip and “Keep Calm and Carry On,” exploded with rioting, looting and general civil unrest in the past week.

11 THURS THE EARLE OF BEER: Justin Townes Earle has a pedigree. His father is three-time Grammy Award-winning and 14-time Grammy Awardnominated Steve Earle, and he was named for Townes Van Zandt, the country folk music legend.

Bye-bye boonies: The country is failing. No, I’m not spouting some rhetoric about how the United States is doomed to die. (It’s not.) According to the Associated Press, rural America is at its lowest population in history, with only 16 percent of citizens roughing it in the boonies.

When you hear “street food,” a few images immediately come to mind. A man sitting next to a stainless steel cart with a red and white umbrella overhead, selling hotdogs that were cooked in what looks like primordial soup. Or perhaps you’re standing next to a rusty truck and getting handed what you thought was a taco, but, on closer inspection, looks like a small pile of cheese and grease.