Can't Miss It: Monday

FREE SPEECH: In the early 1950s, Barney Rosset bought a tiny New York publishing company with a list of three books and turned it into the most legendary house of the second half of the 20th Century. It was Rosset (with help from Don Allen and Dick Seaver) who brought Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, William S. Burroughs, and countless others to American readers. But the move he will be remembered forever for was having the gall to publish the first unexpurgated version of Henry Miller's Tropic of Capricorn. At the time, the mail service maintained U.S. censorship laws, and the court case that Grove won in 1964 essential defeated censorship in the U.S. We don't know much about the documentary Obscene: A Portrait of Barney Rosset and Grove Press, but given Grove's and Rosset's history, it's bound to cover plenty of interesting stuff.

7 & 9 p.m. // NW Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave. // $9

WTF?: So, uh, do you understand what's happening to the global economy? We sort of do, but that's mostly by virtue of knowing more than a few economists. If you wish you knew some economists to ask, well, Town Hall's got the solution: The UW has helped organize a trio of academics to explain it all to you, including Lew Mandell, David Domke, and Jonathan Karpoff and moderated by good old Steve Scher of KUOW.

7:30 - 9 p.m. // 1119 Eighth Ave. // $5

MONDAY ROCK: What with Thanksgiving, it's a slow music week, but don't forget that the good people at Nada Mucho and the High Dive out in Fremont keep it kicking with New Music Mondays. Tonight: Lyon's Mane, The Double Cross Committee, and Blame It On the Girl.

8 p.m. // 513 N. 36th // $6, 21+

BOOKISHNESS: Alex Kuo reads from his new fiction collection, White Jade and Other Stories, at Elliott Bay Books tonight. We've never read him, but he's got a nifty resume: plenty of awards, fellowships, and writers-in-residences. Born in the U.S. but raised in China during the Second World War, he's got an interesting perspective.

7:30 p.m. // 101 S. Main St. // free!