Speaking Tour: 3/5 - 3/11

Monday
SEATTLE ARTS & LECTURES: Art Spiegelman's 1992 Holocaust tale Maus (based on a true story) won the first Pulitzer Prize awarded to a comic book. Its success paved the way for the graphic novels thriving today and led to Spiegelman's ten years on the staff of the New Yorker. In the Shadow of No Towers (2004) gathers his recent broadsheets of disenchantment with the war on terror.

7:30pm // Benaroya Hall // Tickets: $20-$25/$10 25-and-under

NW MODERNISM: Architect John DeForest and Richard Corff of 360modern host a workshop that offers a new look at Northwest modernism. They will discuss what defines NW Modern; who were some of the important players in “Northwest Regionalism” and the “Northwest school”; why Modern design is important today; and how to make NW Modern your own.

6-7:45pm // Seattle Public Library Ballard Branch // FREE

Tuesday
TALES OF THE CITY SAN QUENTIN: Writer and spoken word artist Peter Plate, the author of six novels, taught himself to write while squatting in abandoned buildings in San Francisco's Mission District. He reads from Soon the Rest Will Fall, a new novel in which two former San Quentin cellmates face divergent futures after their release from prison.

8pm // Elliott Bay // FREE

SHAOLIN SHOWDOWN!: Matthew Polly decided to become a fighting machine and learn from the monks of China's Shaolin Temple. In American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New China, Polly talks about his uncomfortable journey through Chinese culture and martial arts mastery.

7pm // University Bookstore // FREE

Wednesday
SUBTEXT: The experimental writing collective presents Rob Fitterman and Bryant Mason. Fitterman is the author of nine books and lives in New York. Mason writes code, lives in Seattle and is a founding member of the Subtext collective.

7:30pm // Hugo House // $5 donation

NEUROLOGY: "Vision and the Brain: Unseen Complexities" explores why we need vision. One system, vision-for-perception, allows us to recognize objects and build up a ‘database’ about the world. The other, much less studied and understood system, vision-for-action, provides the visual control we need to move about and interact with objects.

7-9pm // UW Kane Hall Rm 120 // FREE with RSVP

Thursday
SAVE THE TREES! B. Bruce Bare, PhD, Dean and Professor in the College of Forest Resources, lectures on the future sustainability of our natural resources; the challenges and opportunities involved in the stewardship of these resources for future generations.

7-8pm // UW Kane Hall Rm 110 // FREE with RSVP

SEX ON THE BRAIN: A healthy brain increases your chances for intimacy and great sex. Daniel Amen, the bestselling author of Change Your Brain, Change Your Life and Making a Good Brain Great, wants your brain to get laid. In Sex on the Brain he shares research from modern science to improve your love life.

7pm // Third Place Books // FREE

Friday
LIBRARIANS LOVE ALCOTT: Kit Bakke, local author of Miss Alcott's E-Mail: Yours for Reforms of All Kinds, discusses Alcott's life, "how and where she was raised; the time she spent on the commune set up by her harebrained dad; her activism as an abolitionist; her campaign for women's suffrage; the months she spent as a Civil War nurse; the gothic novels she wrote for adults, which bristled with 'incest and drugs and murders and betrayal' the hard-won fame, after Little Women, that turned into a gilded cage" (Washington Post).

7-9pm // UW Suzzallo Library Rm 101 // FREE with RSVP

YOUR PARENTS ARE FASCISTS: “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross,” Sinclair Lewis wrote in 1935. Journalist Joe Conason presents his thesis that a select group of right-wing ideologues are dragging America towards the end of democracy.

6:30pm // Third Place Books // FREE

Saturday
CLIMATE CHANGE FOR KIDS: To help children understand the science of climate change, Lisa Shimizu of KEXP 90.3 FM and The Climate Project, presents a 40-minute slide show especially designed for children 8-12. This presentation served as the basis for Al Gore’s Academy Award-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth. Local 5th grade science teacher Laura Maier leads an interactive experience that graphically demonstrates the principles of climate change.

11am/1:30pm // Town Hall // FREE for the under-12 market, $5 for adults (kids must be accompanied by adult)

PROSE POETRY: Brooklyn-based Canadian poet Sina Queyras, is joined by Seattle poet Sarah Mangold. Sina Queyras is here with her third collection, the book of prose poems that is Lemon Hound (shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award in the category of lesbian poetry). Sarah Mangold is most recently the author of the chapbooks Boxer Rebellion and Picture of the Basket

7:30pm // Elliott Bay // FREE

Sunday
ALL ABOUT NACHO DUATO: Pacific Northwest Ballet's upcoming performance of the work of Spanish choreographer Nacho Duato is the topic. PNB Education Programs manager Doug Fullington moderates this discussion with PNB principal dancer Ariana Lallone, now celebrating her twentieth year as a ballerina with the company, and repetiteur Hilde Koch.

2pm // Elliott Bay // FREE

PHYSICIAN POETRY: Peter Pereira draws on his life as physician, son, partner, gardener, and lover of language to create What's Written on the Body.

3pm // Open Books // FREE