Can't Miss It: Wednesday

BURLESQUE BENEFIT: Jet City Burlesque appears at the Columbia City Theatre in a benefit for animals in animal shelters. You're supposed to bring dog and cat "items" to the show, to help the shelter experience seem less like prison. Join the Swedish Housewife and the Shanghai Pearl, among many other luminaries, for a warm-hearted celebration of the slightly indecent and intoxicatingly indecorous. And don't forget the squeaky toy. For the animals.

BOOKS: Ursula K. LeGuin has written a book called Lavinia about Aeneas's second wife--maybe you're thinking, Then who's Dido? Dido was pre-Lavinia, baby (he also did her sister Anna). You may remember the story vaguely from college: as Virgil tells it, heroic Aeneas has a bunch of adventures on the way to founding Rome. As LeGuin tells it, Trojans are nothing but trouble. We tend to side with LeGuin.

7 p.m. // University Book Store, University Way // FREE

HOW TO RUN A SEAPORT: Anne Goodchild of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW, will talk about the ongoing development of the Port of Prince Rupert and how that will affect British Columbia, Washington, and Alaska. Goodchild has done analysis of the cross-border logistics and supply chains of Canadian and U.S. ports, so there will be data points. Better get ready with the overflow seating!

5 p.m. doors // Offices of K&L Gates LLP, 925 4th Avenue, #2900 // Tickets: $15 at the door

ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS: The Institute for Children’s Environmental Health brings you Joshua Farley (Gund Institute, University of Vermont) and David Korten (When Corporations Rule the World and The Great Turning) to talk about what a sustainable future would look like. They'll also discuss how to create the components of a new economy. This advice will be largely ignored, naturally, by those in power but, you know, screw 'em.

6:30 p.m. // Town Hall, 8th Avenue & Seneca Street // Tickets: $10/$15 at the door

The listed events were chosen by the editors of Seattlest and brought to you by the 2009 Toyota Corolla.