Can't Miss It: Tuesday

CAN'T CATCH A BREAK: Nami Mun's novel Miles From Nowhere is about a Korean-American woman in the 1980s who lives out our worst nightmare (underage sex worker, junkie, homeless, it goes on). Seattlest MvB says that the main character is "an affectless screen on which bruises from beatings and ulcerated needle tracks appear without histrionic wailings and gnashings of teeth," and praises Mun's "contemplative eye." Mun will be reading from her book at Elliott Bay Book Company tonight.

7:30 p.m. // Elliott Bay Book Company // Free

"Alien Fu Man Chu" by Seattlest
Flickr pool member ERIK98122.

THROUGH SPACE AND TIME: University of Washington professor Bruce Balick can talk for hours about the history of the Hubble space telescope, and tonight he will. 2009 is the 20th anniversary of the Hubble, so it's only appropriate to pay homage to the mechanism that has allowed us to learn more than we'd ever dreamed about outer space. Plus, it's at a restaurant, so you can order a beautiful corned beef dinner for $16.95 to eat while you educate yourself.

7:30 p.m. // T.S. McHugh's // Free + cost of corned beef

TRYING TO FIND HOME: If you're around during the day, strapped for cash, and need something visually interesting to ponder (this describes almost all of our friends, come to think of it), check out 21 Landings at the Northwest Film Forum. It's a free screening, showing all day, of "multiple attempted landings by the legs of a bird-like creature onto an icy, futuristic surface." That sounds like an epiphany waiting to happen.

10 a.m.-5 p.m. // Northwest Film Forum // Free