By David Topping

Torontoist is one of thirteen cities in the worldwide Gothamist network. Each Sunday, the editors of every site—from LAist to Londonist—choose their most interesting article, a list that is compiled into the network-wide feature Elsewhere In The Ist-a-Verse.

• Gothamist visited Sesame Street and brought back a special message from Elmo.
• Chicagoist was in such a tizzy over the arrest of their Governor, Rod Blagojevich—looking at the federal complaint, examining fellow arrestee John Harris, enjoying artists’ interpretations, and comparing him to a Lego man—that they almost didn’t notice that Mayor Daley wasn’t bothering to have the streets plowed.
• Seattlest had visions of monkey smugglers and frozen custard dancing in their heads, and lots of shopping locally left to do before the holidays.
• Shanghaiist was surprised to hear that the US may not have a pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo in 2010.
• Bostonist explored the dirty side of the holidays, catching a burlesque show called The Slutcracker and watching the annual Santa Speedo Run.
• LAist snapped up shots at the UCLA Undie Run, a semi-annual event featuring drunk college students wearing next to nothing.
• DCist noted this year’s stinky Ginkgo fruit epidemic in Washington, and pondered whether they smell more like vomit, dog poo, or uhhh, something else.
• Austinist explained why it isn’t worth the effort to get angry over homophobic rapper Trick Trick, and was surprised that a local school teacher threw a fit when a student tried to hand out free copies of Linux in class.
• Londonist watched an ingeniously condensed record of a walk across the entire breadth of the city and its suburbs, which was almost enough to build up sufficiently large appetite to conquer an epic Christmas sandwich.
• SFist saw so many choice companies negatively affected by the recession, so they asked readers which businesses they would like to see collapse in 2009.

Photo by Jen Carlson/Gothamist.