Can't Miss It: Thursday
FREE BALLARD DAY: It's been over a century, but maybe today's the day that Ballard will finally secede from the city. Stranger things have happened. Anyway, in celebration of Free Ballard Day, the fine folks at Archie McPhee will be giving a free gift to anyone who enters their store saying the secret word: "lutefisk." They'd also like you to know that you'll get a free gift if you spend more than $25. So go get your free remote-controlled yodeling pickle. (We can't guarantee that your free gift will be a remote-controlled yodeling pickle. It's just our favorite thing at Archie McPhee, and we couldn't resist giving it a shout out.)
All day long // Archie McPhee // Lutefisk
BACHATA BOY BAND: If you're not familiar with Aventura, and you're looking to impress your teenage daughter, and you're looking for some fun music tonight (and the price isn't too high for your wallet), we'd really just recommend you trust us and buy some tickets. Their bio explains much better than we can: "They are the first 'Bachata-boy band,' the first band to fuse the essence of bachata with R&B, hip hop and other American pop styles; the first Bachata band to perform in English, Spanish and 'Spanglish.' Aventura is also the first bachata group to feature songs that address serious life situations."
8 p.m. // The Paramount // $60-125
FIRST RULE ABOUT FIGHT CLUB: Chuck Palahniuk's stories are fucked up. It's hard to describe them otherwise, if you're one of the three people who've never read one. They generally feature the misuse of self-help groups, characters both obsessed with and afraid of their darkest selves. His plots generally deal with very difficult situations (say, a model whose face has been burned off) in very humorous, kind of sad and pathetic ways. He'll be reading tonight from his latest book, Snuff. If you were one of the first 150 people to buy the book on May 20, you can get it signed.
7:30 p.m. // University Bookstore // Free
photo from our Seattlest Flickr pool, courtesy of Archie McPhee's Seattle
