Speaking Tour: 2/19 - 2/25
Monday
AUTHOR, AUTHOR: In Bich Minh Nguyen's memoir, Stealing Buddha's Dinner, a young family escapes from Vietnam shortly before the fall of Saigon and relocates to Grand Rapids, Michigan. "In her recreation of a world populated by family ties, Ritz crackers, and Judy Blume books, she has captured the 1980s with perfection," says Kirkus Reviews.
7:30pm // Elliott Bay // FREE
Tuesday
ANNE LAMOTT RECOMMENDS: Elizabeth Gilbert talks about her book Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia. Lamott says: "This is a wonderful book, brilliant and personal, rich in spiritual insight, filled with sorrow and a great sense of humor. Elizabeth Gilbert is everything you would love in a tour guide."
8pm // Elliott Bay // FREE
Wednesday
WOMAN ROARS: Journalist and activist Ann Jones switches from writing about violence against women in the United States to covering sexism and violence abroad with Kabul in Winter: Life Without Peace in Afghanistan. Her account of volunteering to teach English to Afghan high school teachers (and working on behalf of women there) is intense.
7pm // Seattle Central Public Library Microsoft Auditorium // FREE
ELECTION REFORM: Krist Novoselic, co-founder of that band with the other guy, is a long-time advocate of ranked choice voting—wherein voters rank candidates, regardless of party affiliation, in order of preference on a single ballot. Novoselic is interviewed by Eric Liu, who served as a speechwriter and White House deputy domestic policy advisor for President Clinton.
7:30pm // Town Hall // $5
COGNITIVE SCIENCE: Symbolic Understanding in Infants and Young Children: Challenges and Benefits. Dr. DeLoache reviews her research on the challenges that infants and very young children face as they become symbol-minded. Dr. Carlson examines the benefits of symbolic understanding, including iconic and non-iconic symbols, pretense, and language for cognitive and social development with an emphasis on self-control and problem solving.
7-9pm // UW Kane Hall Rm 120 // FREE with RSVP
Thursday
HIP HOP RIP-OFF
In Other People's Property: A Shadow History of Hip-Hop in White America, Jason Tanz, a white writer from the Northwest, takes a look at the way black music has again—like jazz, blues, and rock—been adapted and adopted by white audiences.
7pm // University Bookstore // FREE
VIADUCT! FORUM: After the two viaduct replacement options on the March 13th ballot are described, four panelists engage in a discussion of the pros and cons of each option. Former Mayor Charles Royer speaks fer the surface-tunnel hybrid alternative. Seattle Council dude Nick Licata is agin it. For the elevated alternative: Phil Talmadge, former State Senator. Agin it: Jessyn Farrell, executive director of Transportation Choices. CR Douglas moderates.
7pm // Town Hall // FREE
PUBLIC LANDS: The Honorable Doug Sutherland, Commissioner of Public Lands speaks on the current state of our Washington's forests, our urban environments, and our natural resources and their importance to our future.
7pm (coffee & cookie reception at 8pm) // UW Kane Hall Rm 110 // FREE with RSVP
Friday
BAROQUE OPERA: Seattle Opera General Director Speight Jenkins and Education Director Perry Lorenzo host this discussion of George Frederic Handel's Julius Caesar, opening this Saturday. In Handel's opera, Caesar is sung by a woman, so they have lots of explaining to do.
7:30pm // Elliott Bay // $5
Saturday
CLOWN LIT: Portland writer Monica Drake talks about her first novel, Clown Girl. Set in Baloneytown, a rundown neighborhood in which drugs, balloon animals, and rubber chickens stand in for cash, Clown Girl is about a woman whose meaningless but high-paying jobs give a new meaning to "selling yourself."
2pm // Elliott Bay // FREE
Sunday
HUMAN RIGHTS: Dr. William F. Schulz, former executive director of Amnesty International USA, explores the origins of the deteriorating reputation of the U.S. in the world since 2001, and possible remedies. Dr. Schulz, an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, is the author of In Our Own Best Interests: How Defending Human Rights Benefits Us All and Tainted Legacy: 9-11 and the Ruins of Human Rights.
5pm // Elliott Bay at East Shore Unitarian Church, Bellevue, at 12700 SE 32nd Street // FREE
Photo: Aegis Bordello
